Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Garden Volunteers Cheered

A squad of gnomes stands at attention awaiting assignment to the City of Idaho Falls Garden Volunteers.  Susun attended the annual Ice Cream Social this evening.  Each Volunteer received their very own gnome.  (We will soon introduce the newcomer gnome to our Gang of Gnomes in the courtyard.)  As you recall, Susun and Dina served as judges to help decide which garden got top honors this year.  As we suspected, it was the Tautphaus Park display.  (You can click here to see the blog post that includes the Tautphaus garden.)

Well, anyway, Susun decided she was going to make a speech tonight.  Susun's getting a lot better at speech making, by the way.  I am very impressed with her newfound comfort zone in speech making.

So, Susun gets up in front of all the city's big wigs and tells the story of how we found this city and how the city's parks and flowers really "sealed the deal."  The Mayor stood right after Susun finished and said, "I want to echo everything she said, our parks and flowers are the Greatest!"

In the photo below, you see Delbert Lloyd (left) sitting across from smiling Ida Hardcastle.  Ida is a great City Council person.  She's a tireless patron of the parks and the flowers.  Susun told Ida she heard that the city was thinking of cutting back on flowers this year and Ida said, "Over my dead body!"  YEA, IDA!  Delbert is technically both the city's Horticulturalist AND its official certified arborist.  But he's waay more than that.  I've never met a true Jack of All Trades before like Delbert.  He's amazing.  It's because of Delbert that Susun is in charge of planting the Hilda Garden each year.  THANKS, Delbert!

And, finally, of course, the final photo below is of people lined up for their ice cream.  This is a Norman Rockwell certified city here.  Whenever the city wants to thank people, they feed them ice cream.  That's a pretty good idea, at least as long as it's summertime!

WAY TO GO, SUSUN, YA DUN GOOD!


2 comments:

Maggie said...

There's no place like home for a gnome. And that gnome is getting a mighty fine gnome home. And, WTG Susun. Proud of you.

KelliB said...

What a great idea for a gift - a garden gnome! Congrats Susan! I have one that I have had for many years, and while I haven't always had a garden I have moved it everywhere. It is sitting by the fireplace in our apartment. I would love to see some pictures of your collection!