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Wishing you all a blessed Christmas and a Happy Healthy New Year.

Best,

Faith 

                      “Come little leaves,” said the wind one day,

                        “Come ‘ore the meadow with me and play,

                         “Put on your dresses of red and gold”

                         ”For summer has gone and the days grow cold”

                Do you remember that nursery song? And as we reflect this holiday season, how much we have for which to be grateful, even all those piles of leaves, which can turn good use, for our gardens.

                Kathy Beveridge, our own wonderful magazine editor, has opened a new business called Spark, a nonprofit consulting firm which may be of use to you as you consider ways of fund raising.

                Many of our branches are busy fund raising; Rochester Branch is going all out with their “Greens Market.”  Their outstanding newsletters continue to inform and involve members into taking an active role in all the opportunities this busy club offers. Constant communication among the members helps keep branches alive and giving to their communities.

            Claudia Scioly is on top of “green” speakers, most importantly involving school programs and promises one for our June meeting, while Mayflower Branch is meeting this week to plan along those lines on a local farm, which has offered to become involved in a project.

                Sylvia Anderson is looking for delegates for ACWW. See the magazine for further information. Audrey Ehrler reports that New York and Mayflower have combined for purpose of getting enough member numbers for voting delegates at the Triennial Conference of ACWW. Kay Engelhart is working very hard as the Chairman of International Cooperation Focus to educate our membership.

                More stories have come in for “The Book”.  Please sit down for ½ an hour or so and put down some memory which your children / grandchildren will read sometime in the future. How surprised I was to read in Thomas Hardy [1804-1928] that bees were being transported by horse and cart from place to place even then, for it was in taking hives to market that Tess of the d’Urbervilles experienced the accident with the mail-carrier’s horse which cost the life of her family’s only means of livelihood, the faithful horse Prince.  Luckily for her, the mail carrier was a good and honest man who got the hives to market and saw to it that she got safely home.

            Summer really has gone and the days do grow cold, but our gardens will awaken; plans for next Spring and lovely canned, frozen and root cellar vegetables warm us now.

Faith

    “There were three crows”

It is the time for me to crow…to crow first; about the marvelous work of the Tri-County Branch and their festive, accomplished 80th birthday party in Hartford, NY, home finally of our beloved Mrs. E. Frances King.  Audrey Ehrler and Betty Monahan waited in the warm sunshine at the local firehouse for us to arrive. Within the branch and mounted several articles and clippings from their 80 years of work that included photos of Henry Ford, awarding a Ford tractor to the winner of a horse pulling and plowing contest, and Mrs. King along with Mrs. Ford, helping with a flower show. They are, I believe, the only branch still mounting a flower show, annually. And behold, on a table was a collection of rocks, for our Ambler project. As you remember, each branch is asked to furnish a local rock to go into the rock garden or path, at the Headhouse / Ambler project. Members shared recollections of branch history.

After the meeting, presided over by Janie Thomas, we visited the home of Mrs. King on Route 40. The young couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Waring are struggling to keep it going but her gardens have all but disappeared. Mr. Waring greeted us most hospitably and gave us a rock for the Ambler project from the grounds, and a white rose bush from what remains on a slope. He promised that the bush would thrive and the fragrance divine. I’ll report to you if it survives the New England winter.

Crow number two; I’ve just returned from the “Bee-Fest” at the Ambler Branch a huge crowd had paid $35 each to attend the lecture, displays and lunch along the garden tours at Temple / Ambler, our official home. It was a most successful fun-raiser which had been painstakingly planned by Mrs. Jenny Rose Carey, our Vise-President, Linda Lowe, our liaison and development at Temple Ambler, Grace Chapman, staff there and all in partnership with the Montgomery County bee association. Part of this effort is to re-establish a bee keeping course there. Every Booth had a T-shirts with a bee-keeping themes, and all kinds of honey, tulip and iris bulbs, displays with live bees in conjunction with 4-H. Not only was this great financial, but a lasting gift to the community.

 
Crow number three; Mary Bertolini has come up with a final and favorable reckoning of our June, Natick meeting and is well advanced toward next June in the Niagara Falls area. Michigan, as usual has been doing its wonderful things. Now sorry I was to miss the International Tea, which was such a grand success. The up coming, the Greens Market, just past, a Pumpkin Festival. Soon you will be getting your magazine, filled with good information edited by our talented Kathy Beveridge, and with an orchard cover from Jean Ehlinger’s collection of Orchidae.

 And now, like those three crows, I shall flap my verbal wings, and fly away.
FAITH