Richland Area Beekeepers Field Day

My guy and I made it out to the Richland Area Beekeepers Field Day at Kingwood today.  Here is a picture of some unsuspecting bees not realizing that they are soon to be relocated.  What fun!  I posted a few video clips that we made on youtube below.

Video clip:  I cannot belive they did that!

Video clip:  Dave Duncan instructional demo.

This year the area was roped off and people were not sticking their fingers in the swarms, but I got to say howdy to Sonny Barker, my favorite beekeeper and won a raffel basket of bee goodies!  My guy refused to let me try for the bee box raffel.  Maybe next year!

A few more pics from the activities I posted on Kingwood Center facebook and one more video I didn't.

Flower Arranging in Kingwood Hall

Today was my first attempt for Flower Arranging in Kingwood Hall.  We had an instructional lesson and everyone picked an area to arrange.  I picked the woman's restroom so I wouldn't feel too much pressure.  Another new flower arranger Darla and I worked together with some overseeing by my good friend Elin D.  We used peony and tried to match the dark wood of the table along with the redishness of the picture fames.  It was daunting and I'm not sure I am cut out for this, but I will stick with it for now and give it my best effort.  I would say not bad for the first time.

Here are two lilac arrangments I found to be stunning.

Red Sholdered Hawk

Today was a rain day for the Rose Garden volunteers.  It was still drizzling as I made a visit to work on a spreadsheet up at the house.  On my walk from the parking lot I sighted this Red Shouldered Hawk hanging out on a lamp post.  I would have stood there all day, but I ran out of camera battery.  Took about 350 pictures.  It was an exciting time.  I will only share two that I really loved.

This one is the one I have chose to put on Facebook. 

The hawk was a little wet and preening its feathers. 

I was so pleased to get this picture.

If I had used this one as a Caption This....

.....My caption would be.....

Simon Says stand on one foot!

Spread Your Wings..

Simon didn't say Spread Your Wings!

Spring Flower Festival

This years Spring Flower Festival was a lot of fun. I wish I would have taken more pictures. For sure one of Bill Collins in his animal bandana! I started off in the Trimble Road parking lot with Jane J.  We had a great time welcoming people to Kingwood and chatting.    I did a two hour shift there and then got a call from Kathy M to go over and meet her at the Linden Road gate.  She was hanging out there by herself so I hung out with her for a while maning the gate.  When her time was up there, Kathy grabbed a snack from Cafe on Main and we sat down in front of the greenhouse for a spell.  So many familiar faces.  It may have taken a few years, but I have really met quite a few people around Kingwood.  Kathy had to run off to another volunteer obligation, so I went on over to where Lisa Duckworth's daughter Becca was showing her goats.  This is my new friend Toby and he made his premere at the festival this year.  We had met the week before and became fast friends.  The kids loved him as well.  After that, I moved to the plant sales area where I finished up my day of volunteering helping out Becky and Juli.  I was worn out with all the hellos and it was a long day, but I enjoyed it so much more that last year.  I do hope Kingwood will continue it next year in some form or another.

Toad Eggs

Well, once again I started on my quest this year to get some awesome pictures of the toad eggs in the lily pond.  I have been trying to do a series in which they transform from eggs into toads.  This has turned into much more of a difficult quest than I could have imagined.  I thought I had a good start this year.  Not great pictures but something to work with as a start.  Unfortunately, the eggs were cleaned out of the lily pond (probably in anticipation of the Spring Flower Festival).  So I will post what I have and maybe someday in future years I will have attained enough stages to put everything together.

 

Charles Applegate Dried Flower Arranging

How Does Charles Applegate Do It?  Well, my buddies Lynn H and Kathy M put together a bulletin board showing how it's done.  Notice the color palette is made up of flowers. I had the pleasure of spending a few hours watching Charles design the splendid dried flower arrangement in the Kingwood Hall Foyer.  Here is a step by step:

. . . . and 2012 begins

I've started off the new year kind of the way I ended the old.  Negleting my blog.  Not that I have neglected Kingwood Center.  December was a busy time with Kingwood Hall decorated for Christmas.  I assisted in many hours of hostessing in the decorated house.  And as January started up, so did I... helping pack up the Christmas decorations. 

  ===== I have also neglected my pictures, so I took Bonnie H's from the Kingwood Website for this blog without asking. Thanks in advance Bonnie!

As the picute here of Bill Collins in a sea of Christmas aftermath will give you a visual.  What turned out to be my favorate project this year was puttng newspapers in bow rings to keep the felt bows in good shape for next year.  The bows came off the wreaths which decorated the house and there were sooooo many!  It was great fun working with my partner in crime Miss Kathy M.  Lisa Duckworth joined in to help as well.  She is the new volunteer coordinator upon Kay's retiring.  But they gave her a different title of Events Coordinator.  Whatever - more on the 'Whatever Kingwood' in another blog.

Last year I spent most of the tear down time taking lights off the tree.  That would be one of my least favorate jobs.  If you remember there were 7,900 lights on that tree this year.  I was very pleased that the task was for the most part done as we worked on other things.  Here is Glenna Sheaffer finnishing it up.

When I first showed up Jack was loading up the flocked Christmas Tree, that took so much effort by the Johnny Appleseed Garden Club, in a truck to go to the chopper.  I snickered a little as he got flocked lifting up the tree.  He was not quite as amused.  As I came outside later in the day, it was just one of many on the truck.

So to sum it all up, that is much of how I spent my first week of January at Kingwood Center.  I'm glad Bonnie H had her camera those days.