The presentation went just fine and no one asked about my raccoon eyes. There was a nice turnout, despite the fact that the "room" was the curtained-off end of a cold dark hallway half a mile (not really) from the show. Oh, and they replaced the projector so the colors were true on the slides.
It was fun to meet Kylee and her Mom, although I didn't have much time to talk. She has a nice post about the show on her blog. While I walked around for several hours after the talk, I wasn't engaged. Too much adrenaline. I did buy several packets of seeds, dahlia bulbs and liliums for the site from the Master Gardener booth.
My niece brought her two youngest, Caleb and Morgan. Caleb slept through the talk, but Morgan was engaged. It's interesting what a kindergartner absorbs. She really honed in on the fact that Gene Stratton-Porter died in a car accident. She asked me about it after the talk and then she reported to her grandmom (my sister), "That woman died in a car accident." Her other grandmother recently had a car accident, which was probably why it made such an impact on her.
My niece, bless her heart, asked if it was possible to volunteer in the garden. I didn't even plant that question! And several people I worked with years ago saw my name and decided to attend. They said they were going to show up for the volunteer work day on April 21. Yippee! One of my goals is to develop an active volunteer program at the site.
I went with Renee and we had a nice lunch at Panera's before the show and made plans to take several short garden trips this spring. Any suggestions for day trips? My list includes the Chicago Botanic Gardens and T.C. Steele garden in Brown County. This has been an interesting process, since it started when I asked if she wanted to go on a 2-week trip to England with Purdue Master Gardening staff. Then we decided to cut the cost and time with a trip to Butchart Gardens in Vancouver with Elderhostel. Now we are talking about a series of day trips.
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