Back In Action

While I'm not quite at 100% recovery from my cold (day 5), it was nice to be back at work.  It really was the "welcome back" looks like the one above from Dick H. that made me feel missed.  It sounds like there are lots of colds/flu going around and my symptoms were not unlike those of others I've talked to recently either.  Regardless, I spent most of day trying to catch up from last week.  I was able to continue seed ordering and made some calls to our growers regarding the status of our orders.  Janice has already selected the vegetable offerings for the Spring Plant Sale in May and I'm locating these varieties in the various seed catalogs as I progress slowly through the stack.  At some point we'll have our plant sale variety listings on our website.  Seed ordering is my primary focus right now but with 2013 upon us, there are many other projects that I'm starting as well.  We'll be pulling together details for our 2013 Garden Art Project which will feature a sun form as seen below.  These will also have a raised, center circle too and the guys have done a nice job moving ahead with this project.  Larry held down the fort and was involved with taking down lights and various tasks inside the Horticulture Center as well.

I was impressed with our volunteer turnout today.  We had ample sunshine and nice blue skies with the promise of more warm days (over 40 degrees F) later in the week.  This is a bit warm for my taste but is perfect for dismantling the lights show.  Larry H., Jim (new Grumpy), Urban, Terry, Dick W., Pat and RBG Larry were all out collecting various lights and features of the Holiday Lights Show (HLS) throughout the morning.  The guys alternated collecting items and ultimately also spent time processing incoming lights as well.  They have a good system and are keeping everything organized.  Dr. Gredler was in for some more painting projects as was Bob A. (directly below).  Bob is painting uprights that will be on our new obelisks for the formal annual sections this year.  Dave, Jim D., Vern and Dick H. spent most of their morning working on the garden art project preparations.  Maury came in to run some errands and we saw Bill O. later in the day.  He came and helped wrap and pack away more lights.  We also saw Tina B., Stan and Mary today.