WESTMINSTER — Last Monday, the Allen Brothers farmstand on Route 5 was sitting in several feet of flood water from the Connecticut River.
By the end of last week, it was back in business, albeit on a limited basis.
Just a few short days after owner Tim Allen surveyed the damage from flooding spawned by Tropical Storm Irene and predicted that the stand would not be open for a while, if ever again, a stream of volunteers helped his family clean up the damage and get it ready for the Labor Day weekend.
On Labor Day, Heather Allen stood among pots of chrysanthemums in a field across the road from the stand.
“We've washed them over and over again this week,” she said. “That rain last night was a real godsend and took the last of the silt from the leaves. ”
Across the road at the site of the bakery and deli, all the employees volunteered their time, including store manager Doreen McAllister.
“I'm here to help,” she said.
Bellows Falls Union High School teacher and Westminster resident Diane Cecere showed up Monday to volunteer for the second time in two days, having been in Grafton just two days before.
“I'm here to get dirty again,” she said, showing her shoes that still sported dirt from the Rushkin farm in Grafton. “Whatever they need me to do, I'll do.”
When asked why she was volunteering again, she said, “I teach by example. Plus, I stop here every day on my way to work. I just feel it's the right thing to do.”
McAllister said that volunteers are responsible for doing everything that has enabled the store to have anything to sell. She said they've washed and sprayed and moved and mucked out.
“We have people just stopping by and seeing what they can do to help,” she said.
In front of McAllister is a cart displaying shiny fresh McIntosh apples from Russell Allen's orchard, “that didn't get touched by the flood.”
Beside them are several kinds of flood-free tomatoes. Winter squash, she said, will be coming.
It may seem a modest display, especially when looking at the Allen Brothers' fields that lay in ruin across the road, filled with vegetables covered in silt and beginning to rot.
But, as Lance Allen said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Some people lost their homes. It's not easy. But I consider us pretty lucky.”
“We don't have any income coming in yet,” Heather Allen said. “What we really need is for people start coming in and buying things.”