Why Nine Bean Rows?
So you’re asking why the property is called Nine Bean Rows, well it isn’t because we grow beans, in fact up to now we don’t grow anything other the the natural wild plants that are already here. The name comes from the Yeats Poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree”.
Nine Bean Rows is located near the town of Innisfee, Alberta. The original name of the town was Delnorte, but when the president of the Bank of Commerce came through the town, he thought the island on Birch Lake just south of town looked like the Isle of Innisfree in Ireland. He agreed to build a bank in the town if they changed the name to Innisfree.
The famous Yeats poem talks of building a Cabin near Innisfree and growing nine bean-rows. Since our cabin is built near Innisfree, all be it Alberta, Canada, not Ireland, we thought it appropriate to take the name from the poem.
As we develop the property bean rows and honey bees are in the plan along with using the natural plants like Saskatoon and Raspberry’s, Chokecherries and as yet undiscovered treasures.
Here’s the Yeats poem that inspired the name:
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
William Butler Yeats (1893)
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.