Diggin' It

Today my DH and I went to our daylily and iris society's "dig".  That's when you prep all of the flowers for the the collector's sale - the major fundraiser for the society.

We loved it - and not just because we were the youngest folks there!  The members running the dig are so incredibly knowledgable about gardening, it's like getting a private lesson from a Master Gardener.  My DH was especially thrilled to see an actual iris borer worm.  I'm not so sure I would have been as thrilled - aside from it being a worm, it digs into the iris rhizome and eats it so the flower dies.  Nope, don't think I would like that at all.

Having not been on a dig for the society before, we thought that we would be, well, digging.  That's not what happens though.  It made sense to us.  What collector would want strangers in their gardens digging and stomping around the beds after they'd spent thousands of dollars on them?  I know we wouldn't!

We cleaned up the iris and daylilies that had been dug up by the garden owners, sorted them by size and cultivars (type), labeled them and bundled them up so they were all ready to be sold this coming week.

It takes many hands and quite a few hours to get everything in order for the collector's sale.  And since they have different flowers for sale each year, the displays for the tables have to be prepared as well.   Fortunately, the long-time members of the society have done this many times, so they were able to teach us the ropes - or in my case, put me on a task where I couldn't do too much damage.

I got to make labels and tear off strips of tape.  They said it was because I had really good handwriting. I'm going to have to think about that a little bit more before I believe them!

All in all, about 500 plants were prepped for the sale - and this is the small sale, the big one isn't for a few weeks.

Now all I have to do is get my wallet prepped, because I saw some beautiful irises and daylilies that need a good home...

A Coke and a Smile

Today the nicest thing happened.  We save our bottles and cans from parties and dinners and us - just wash them and toss them in bags.

At first it was just because I was supposed to return them to the store, but  always forgot to take them with me when I went shopping.  Then, at some point it reached "critical mass" and even the thought of returning them was overwhelming.  But we kept adding to the store of bottles and cans.

Last week, though, I found a solution to my problem.  The volunteer fire department in our neighboring town was having a bottle drive.  It was my chance to give back to the guys who rescued my friend from her car when she really needed help *and* I could finally do something about all of those bottles.  A win-win!

So I loaded up the truck with as many bags as I could fit, even filled up the passenger seat, and I headed over to the fire station.

When I pulled in to the lot and took the lawn and leaf bag filled with bottles from the passenger seat, the ladies were so grateful for the donation.  They had collected a small box of bottles that they were washing.  They had no idea that everything in the pickup bed was for them also!  The women thanked me and asked if they were washed (yup - all washed).

Then I went back to the truck and started unloading the rest of the bags.  I could hear the excitement as they got it - all of the bags were filled with bottles for their fundraising drive.

They came over to help and we started carrying the bags out of the truck.  Who was I?  Where did I come from?  How had I managed to collect so many bottles!?

I told them my name and that I lived in the next town over.   Then I told them how grateful I was for their volunteer fire department's help with my friend - and all the times that they would come to help our volunteer fire department out.

I sort of glossed over the fact that the reason my DH & I have so many bottles is because I consistently forgot to return them!  No need to go there, eh?

I wished them luck with their bottle drive and hopped back into the truck.  As I pulled out, I could still hear their excitement.  "We're going to have to get a bigger truck!"

It really made my day.

Touring Seeds

The seeds on these grasses are the reason I weeded so long this week.  But the grass is mowed and the tour is over.

My DH & I hosted the dinner party for the gardeners and we raised a lot of money for our little charity.

I think I should be happy, but I'm really too tired to think, let alone feel anything right now.

I am happy about 1 thing, however, I'm so happy this tour is over.

Garden Tour

Saturday is the local garden tour.  We've spent a lot of time working on our garden to get it ready for the tour - weeding, mulching, pruning, primping.  We've advertised everywhere we could think of - newspapers, television, radio, blogs, websites.  We hung up posters, passed out cards, chatted with hundreds of people.  We've gotten sponsors and volunteers.  Hopefully this little charity garden tour will get a great turn-out.

Some of the gardens are on huge multi-million dollar estates.  They have rolling hills, exotic coy ponds, famous owners, professional gardeners.

Ours is an historic daylily garden.  Today the lilies are in bloom.  I keep going out to count the buds, hoping the deer will stay away just one more day so there will be flowers when the tour comes through.

Some of the gardens have been featured in national garden magazines.  Their owners spend hundreds of hours hunting down the perfect plants, carrying them up steep hills and nestling them into that tiny space where they'll make a big impact.

A few are national garden conservancy treasures.  Historic properties with mature gardens where even the weeds are "real plants".

Just looking at pictures of the gardens doesn't really do them justice.  You don't get the sense of scale of the gigantic boulders that were moved into place on the top of a mountain to create a naturally filtered freshwater mini lake.

Or the place where tiny terraces have been carved into a hillside/cliff to create small cozy gardens around every turn.

It's really the vistas overlooking the valley with the mountains framing the view that "make" most of the gardens.  All of the flowers, shrubs, streams and bushes are simply a garnish for what mother nature has given already.

So if you're in town, stop by and see the tour!

Oh Happy Day

So here's the dilemma.  The daylilies are popping out all over the place.  But the tours are still 3 weeks away, so it would be nicer if they would hold off a bit so they could all bloom when the tour is on, but they're plants, so there's really nothing I can do - they're going to bloom when they're going to bloom.

But it would be nice if they would wait.

In the meantime, I'm rushing like a madwoman trying to get all of the flyers, brochures, press releases, fundraising and advertising stuff done for the tour.  I was really pleased when they selected me to be the new president of the garden club, but my vision was more along the lines of hosting little garden tea parties in my fancy garden dress and pearls - not so much along the lines of spending hours on the computer, then more hours covered in compost and weeds.

I'm thinking the June Cleaver in pearls thing would have been a bit more relaxing.

Maybe I could put some bags over the flowers and surround them with ice so they think it's winter again!?

Just a thought...

Quiet Panic

The garden tour is 22 weeks from today.  I have been sitting here all day contemplating that one little fact.  

In 22 weeks my Frans Hals daylilies will be in bloom and there will be hundreds of people traipsing around our gardens asking hundreds of questions.  We will serve them gallons of iced tea and lemonade, trays of fruit and cookies, and as much gardening knowledge as we can possible remember about our gardens.

In 21 weeks there will be printing deadlines and last minute decisions about table setups and posters.  Radio interviews, newspaper interviews and emails sent out all around.

In 20 weeks there will be press releases written and letters sent to media outlets, television ads and radio ads.

In 19 weeks there will be a big push for fundraising and thank you notes and follow-ups.  There will be handouts and flyers printed.

In 18 weeks the garden must be ready.

In 17 weeks the lawns must be mown and edged.

In 16 weeks the water features must be re-stoned.

In 15 weeks, all of the garden beds must be edged and mulched.

In 14 weeks all of the window boxes must be planted.

In 13 weeks all of the main annuals must be in the ground.

In 12 weeks, we can begin planting outdoors.

We have 12 weeks before we start planting outside and I haven't finished my winter gardening tasks - redoing the planting diagrams, updating the garden bed charts with anything that should/may come back again from this last year.  It's just not done.

This year will be our first year as president of the garden club.  It's a big deal to us - mostly because it acknowledges the huge amount of work we have done on the grounds since we bought our bucolic manor.  Mostly done by my Dear Honey.  Mostly done by hand.

Tomorrow we have our first meeting with the outgoing president of the garden club to talk about the tour.

I guess this marks the official start of summer.  I hope it doesn't snow.

Cupcakes!

For our celebration to light the town trees, I had these cupcakes made.  I know what you're thinking - why didn't I do it myself!?  Well, there just wasn't enough time in the day.

The "edible wafer" was made by scanning in a photo and printing it out onto a rice paper transfer.  It was slightly sweet, but mostly neutral in flavor - so it goes with anything.  The buttercream icing was pure creamery fresh butter that satisfied every taste bud.  The vanilla cake was light and moist with a delicate crumb that served more as a delivery system for the frosting than as a cake.

Yum.

The transfers were made by one bakery - the cupcakes by another.  It was just one more thing that showed how much our little town was pulling together to do the tree lighting.

You just have to love that!

Mmmmmm - cupcakes!

Here's What We Did

These 2 spruce trees are right in front of our town hall.  They really are a nice shape, so the mayor decided that it would be neat if they had lights on them.

Then 2 committees met and decided that it would be neat if they got lights for the trees and had them put up.

Then a subcommittee met and decided that it would be neat if there were lights that could be put up on the trees.

Then a sub-subcommittee met and decided that while it would be nice if there were trees on the lights, there was simply no funding available to do to.

Then all kinds of crazy broke out and people started talking to each other and decisions got made and folks volunteered and all of the sudden there were people who said - we can do this.

There were fundraisers knocking on doors, flyers handed out and hung up, cans on counters, emails sent, radio chats, television advertising and newspaper press releases.  And the town responded.  And the money came.

And then to story of how the trees came to be planted where they were came out.  They were memorial trees planted for 2 little girls who died.  And the community responded more, and the family of the girls responded.  And the money came.

Then the contractors stepped up to the plate and donated their time and equipment.  And the lights came and were hung, the electric lines got run and a celebration was planned, the bakers baked goodies and  a party was put together.

Then the celebration time arrived.  The people of the town came to see the trees lit.  The clergy came to bless the moment, the mayor spoke, the family lit the trees, the press took photos and quotes and the television cameras recorded the event.

And the trees were lit.

This happened in a rural community where money is tight, foreclosures are common and jobs are non-existant.  It happened because people care about the town and they care about the family who lost the little girls.

This was a wonderful thing.  So many people stepped up to the plate and helped out in whatever way they could.

Thank you everyone!!!

I'm still smiling!

Darn File Conversions!

ZamZar!

Okay.  This actually falls into the category of organizing.  The thing is, I worked all day on a programme for my little town event.  And it looks sort of okay.  Still needs a but of work.

But the thing is, I saved it in Microsoft Publisher format.  (That's sort of a cross between Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint - for you Windows users.  Or sort of a cross between Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop - for you Mac users.)

And the thing is, I have no software on my Mac to view - let alone edit - the file.

And the other thing is, I have to send out the file for editing tonight.

So.

I went online and found ZamZar.  They have a convertor.  And it's free.  And it works pretty good.

They saved me!!! Yay!

So if you're stuck in a conversion meltdown, check them out. 

Okay, that's the thing then.

(Disclaimer:  I am not affiliated with ZamZar and they have no clue who I am.  And tomorrow I plan to have no more computer issues.  Honest.)

Taking the Cake

It's finally done!  Okay, it's not what I had planned.  I kept the tree part, but just made a flat cut-out, not 3-dimensional.  But I think it is pretty nice.

Devil's Food chocolate cake with a lemon/almond buttercream - decorated with mexican paste stars and dots with a pine tree on top.

I did a striped pattern in the buttercream on the sides by moving the offset spatula up and down.  The stars and dots are evenly spaced around the cake.  

There are some bumps in the frosting.  The dots are not exactly placed.  My eyes see a thousand little flaws.

This is where I take the advice of my friends - it doesn't have to be perfect.  I just has to taste good.

I can tell you - it is quite delicious.

Tomorrow it goes to the bake sale.  I hope it brings in a lot of money for them!

Yay!  Now I get to sleep!!!

Fundraising 102 - Thank You!

Our fundraising drive is over and now it is time for the Thank Yous.  We did very very well with the campaign for the tree lights.  We raised more than was needed, so we will be able to get twice as many lights and be able to maintain the trees as well!

Today I printed up the Thank You cards for all of the people and businesses who donated to our little cause.  It's so important to thank everyone who helped and donated - to let them know that their money and time really matter.

When I read through the list of names, there were two that stuck in my head.  They are the reason we have trees to plant in the first place.

It turns out that the trees were not planted in front of what used to be the town's elementary school just on a whim.  They were planted as a memorial to 2 little girls who died 21 years ago in a terrible terrible car accident.  We heard about this and looked into the history - it was *bad*.

The two names that stuck out on the list don't live in our town - and this is really understandable.  They were the parents of the little girls who died.  But even though they don't live here anymore, they wanted the trees to be lit up for all of the town's celebrations.

The parents want the girls to be remembered for their happiness and joy.  They want the lives of the girls to be celebrated, not just have their deaths mourned.  And that is what will happen now.

Every time someone in our town has a cause for celebration - they can light up the trees.  And the trees will be cared for with the extra monies in the fund.

It's all good.  And that's what fundraising is all about.

Fundraising 101

Our little town has a new town hall.  It's the old elementary school, so not a new building, but it's new to the town as a town hall.  I think it's a really nice town hall-esque building.  I don't think very many towns are building government buildings like it these days - and I think it is a good use of an existing space.  Much better than letting the building just sit there and fall to pieces.

Anyway, we have a Holiday of Lights every year - the fancy way of saying "tree lighting ceremony"- and a few folks in town thought it would be nice to light up the new town hall trees as part of the ceremony.

I like the idea - the more holiday lights the merrier!  So I went out this afternoon and took some pictures of the town hall with the trees.  I photoshopped them to a charcoal effect and added layers of red, blue and yellow round brush strokes for the proposed lights.  I like this one the best - the portrait size fills the flyer we will be using for fundraising.  It only has one of the trees, but there are no electric lines and the sign and steeple for the building are really visible.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to write on the flyer so I did some research on the web.  According to the experts, the most effective thing to write on the flyer are: who, what, where, when, why, and how.  Just the basics - clean and simple.  I just love it when things are so straightforward.

So - light up your town and get some new lights for the winter festivities!