Big Changes

Hi All (If any of you are still out there),

I lost my internet connection for a while there. But I'm back. It was a bad month to not post because there has been soooooo much happening down here at the Gardens. The new garden got put in with the Career Center kids and our grubby knuckled volunteers planting over a thousand plants ranging from trees to grasses. The irrigation system in the new garden gave me fits for about a week but I'm pretty sure I can now take apart a Hunter PGH head and put it back together with my eyes closed.

Kenton and the volunteers dedicated to the Harmony Garden have been really dedicated. They pulled up the landscape fabric, amended the soil with llama and horse manure, transplanted trees, and started planting. It looks great. I know it isn't done but it is just amazing nonetheless.

Yours truly has been juggling triple duty being Interim Director and Volunteer Coordinator in addition to the job I'm supposed to be doing, Operations Manager.

Some chucklehead has been stealing the solenoids off of the scrubber valves in the amphitheater. Not cool. So it looks kinda dead down there. If I catch the jerk I've got about 10 acres of weeds that can be pulled.

The mister motor finally gave up the ghost. The starter switch was either sticking open and ruined the bearings or the bearings died and the started switch got stressed either way, that is what caused the capacitor to smoke. It was very exciting. What is even more exciting is that I finally have the answer to the nearly 3 year old question "Why is the thermal override tripping so much?"

The main pump in the manhole down by the river hasn't been maintained in at least 3 years so it was filled with sludge. Hopefully it will get suctioned out today. I'm all excited because I got to buy a manhole lifer upper. Granted I'm not strong enough to lift the manhole cover but I'm happy to have the lifter upper anyway.

The new 5hp pump and netafim system are working great. As soon as I get the main pump going we'll be back in business.

We are doing live butterfly releases for the month of May. Every Saturday at 1pm we'll be releasing 75 butterflies. The first one was last week and it was really cool. I'm hoping we can continue them after May.

There is all kinds of other great things happening, like cool sculptures being donated and stuff like that but I'll save that for tomorrow.

Remember that Bloomin' Deals is this Saturday starting at 9am. Be there! From what I've seen so far there are going to be a lot of great plants!