Winter update before first day of Spring!

I've been teaching a bit this winter so I thought I'd share a bit of my notoriety. Our new Events Coordinator, Elizabeth (who worked outside with me last summer) apologized profusely that is was on the Fox network, but I figured the local news station was not quite so adamantly Republican (agh...the slippery slope of fame!) Rubén's favorite part (yes, he repeats it quite often) is when I say, "It doesn't really grow in soil, it grows in Australia mostly." So now we know there's no soil in Australia!

note the new title, Thanks Elizabeth!

Here's a couple of stills, just so you can see my gurning (what did ya'll call it at NCSA, Karen?)


That was in February - Rubén made the plaques for the ferns and it was quite a successful set of classes even though I myself would never hang something like that on my wall. Urgghh...think of the mold growing behind the plaque - yeechhhh!

Rapture about the "Brie-L-T" at the Cafe - I couldn't think of anything else since I never eat there!

In January and February I also did a lot of Terrarium classes and they were hugely popular. In this one Wash U students in an intensive had to make a model of their sustainable urban landscape design. Elizabeth took some very candid shots - this is the only one where I only look mildly ridiculous. Look how rapt my audience is!

Washington University Sustainability Class - Terrarium Final

Two weeks ago I did the first half of a Seed-Starting Class on Vegetables and Herbs and yesterday I did one on Flower Seeds - aargghhh, that was difficult to put together. I had to do lots of research since I haven't started flower seeds much since I started working for Bowood - laziness? worker fatigue? or maybe that 30% discount? Anyway it was a smaller group so I made most of it hands-on and they were really happy to go home with some flower seedlings-to-be.

I'll probably do a Gardening for Kids class if it is approved (yes, I hear Lucie laughing) but the season is starting and I'm now the "Plant Specialist" - Christine and I are the only "originals" left, so I'm the one currently making up stuff to tell the customers. We also have a new operating system so I'm updating all the info for inventory - this system has a place for pictures too so I am patting myself on the back for saving all the photos from when I made the signs - it seemed a silly thing to do but with infinite storage space...and now I find I've an easier job of it. We have to be grateful for being hoarders sometimes.

So, that's what I do - what do YOU do at work?

love, Agelaius

Flowers

It is sunny this morning, so I managed to get a picture of the flowers.

I am glad to see this one blooming, because it was supposed to be evergreen but it kind of turned brown and people on the internet said that Lithodoria is difficult to grow. I also have a pot full of Johnny Jump-Ups. I planted them back in January just for the heck of it. It was still kind of cold out, so I didn't thin them like I was supposed to, so there are quite a lot of them. I guess soon it will be time to plant some tomatoes!

Cats and Rain

Not much new happening in California. But Mom mailed my cats some little knitted mice, so here's a picture of Jupiter hogging both of them:

He likes them because they are just the right weight for tossing around. Ziggy liked them too but he's not interested in playing by himself for very long, so he ceded control of the one I tossed to him to Jupiter after batting it around a bit.

It rained a lot today, which is pretty unusual. It's been drizzly the past week, but today it rained constantly. Fortunately, I got all my chores done before it really started coming down.

I got a couple of new origami books, so I've been working my way through them. One of my friends suggested I put the pictures on Instagram, so here they are. Making the pictures square actually works well for these. :)