Thursday, March 24, 2011

A Well-Oiled Machine...


Today started out quite chilly but became slightly less chilly and at least sunny! This would qualify as one of the busier days I've had in recent years as there were many things occuring at once and we had a full crew in the Horticulture Center working on a multitude of projects. To the left is the first of the Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) peeking out a bit early although with another warm-up, we'll see thousands of these offering their nice blue blips of color around the gardens.

Larry worked on all sorts of projects including trying to repair a power steering issue with one of our vehicles. We're thankful for Larry, Dick H. and so many others that are handy with these sorts of things as we don't have much of a budget for repairs and these guys have saved us so much time and money with their repairs. Dick W. was a "whirlwind of woodchipping" and began mulching our western slope off the main building. I hope this helps keep the weeds down as this is one of our summer "hot spots" for weeds. Urban went out to prune roses and Bill came in to collect debris and tidy up the paths that were looking a bit rough after all of the heavy rains. Vern, Dave and Bob A. continued working on new cedar benches for our future North Point Garden (to be installed yet this spring). See their efficient set-up below.The office area was abuzz with many coming and goings. Janice worked on producing lanyards and had help from Dr. Gredler (to the right) and Marianne (to the left) for getting the assembled and organized. Marianne also pulled together supplies for our "Meet & Greet" Friday night, worked on handouts and helped prepare descriptions for our neat silent auction items. Gary was in to work on more labels and things are going well although we've run in to an odd glitch that we're looking in to. Maury ran some much appreciated errands for me and we are thankful his willingness to help with so many things. Dave G. was here along with a semi-load of shredded bark that came very early. Unfortunately the mulch was frozen in the truck and the driver had to leave the load frozen in the box for a later thaw and unloading. We also saw Ron & Randy (UofI Extension), Neil, Kris (our new Education Coordinator), Mary Kay, Jumbo Jim, Ron W., Art, and Kelli brought over James Otterstein, the Economic Development Manager for Rock County, whom she was meeting with that morning. James gave us a nice update on some recent bouts of good economic news for our county. Directly below is Dick H. who was replacing the ignition assembly on one of our trucks. At the bottom is Pat converting some of the Golden K's tree sale signs to reflect the new dates for this year (April 22 and 23). Check out our website (www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org) for details regarding this sale if you want some affordable evergreen, 2-3 year old transplants (4 choices!).

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