HLS Delivers!

Included in this blog are photos that I took this past Friday and Sunday at our Holiday Light Show (HLS).  The good news is that we've already had around 2,300 attendees for this event.  The bad (unfortunate) news is that we had to cancel the show on Saturday night because of rain.  Weather is such an important factor and it looks like some wet snow is arriving on Thursday of this week.  On Saturday, Larry couldn't get a good portion of the lights on due to the excessive moisture and our ground faults on many of the outlets.  Thankfully, it was dry enough by yesterday afternoon to get everything back on again.  The event has gone very well with very few problems.  The next four day grouping for the HLS (December 20, 21, 22 and 23) should be quite busy.  We'll also have the HLS on December 27th thru the 30th.  Check out our website for more information.  It was nice to talk to visitors to see where they were from and how they heard about the show.  There were MANY first-time visitors (to the gardens in general) from outside the area that we attracted with our expanded marketing for this event as a result of that JEM grant from the WI Department of Tourism.  We've also had some great entertainment at this event including the Edgerton High School Choral Singers below.  The trains, as always, are also a big hit as is Santa, the quilt display, our gift shop and all the refreshments.

It was a quiet day at the Horticulture Center with Janice and I doing research in the office.  Janice is still scouting out vegetable varieties and I'm starting on some of my spring presentations that are just around the corner.  Vern, Bob and Jim continued work on their eight new obelisks and Dick H. and Pat were in as well.  Dick H. made a fuel run and Pat is continuing to repair some of our recently donated lights.  Maury ran some errands and Dr. Gredler was in for more painting.  Gary is sizing up some future labeling ideas for use out in the gardens and elsewhere.  We also saw Rollie, Mary W. and many members of our Horticultural Therapy Committee that arrived after I finished this blog.