Years ago, we used to host a bunch of “shared lunches” at the Plant. That’s before anyone from the public came around much. We needed a “Dinner Bell” near the kitchen, which could be heard across the Plant campus.
I had some interesting pieces of stainless steel in my bone yard at Summer Shop, which I passed along to Joe Ezzel—a talented artist and fabricator that worked at the Plant.
Joe collected various pieces of scrap and created a masterpiece dinner bell that was
installed in the yard. They made a movie about Joe and the bell here. https://vimeo.com/438672530https://vimeo.com/438672530
We used Joe’s creation to let the farmers know that lunch was served. Forklift operators would hear the bell and come to eat. We gathered. We dined. We went back to our tasks at the Plant.
As the Plant morphed from an eco-industrial park into the public facing food, beverage, and events destination that it is today, we noticed kids loved to mob the dinner bell.
It wouldn’t even be lunch time. I would hear the bell, and it would make me hungry.
But the bell drove Tami crazy. On one side of campus someone is trying to get married. On the other some kids are ringing the bell at full volume. “Get that dinner bell out of here,” said Tami.
Arlo and I dug it up and shipped it back to Summer Shop where it laid in a pile for years.
When we brought our Workshop at the Plant online in the fall of 2024, I brought the bell in, lopped off its cement “root ball” and asked Joe and Rick to reinstall it—out of reach of the public—but still useable when we need to heed the call to lunch…
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