Category: News from National

Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, rocked in the

cradle of the western breeze….. William Cowper (1731-1800)

Once more, Kathy Beveridge has charmed us with The Magazine.

In it are vital pages for the upcoming conference-meeting, June 11,12,13 in Massachusetts. Please send your information to Aileen LaBret. Registration is gratifying and you will find plenty of dear acquaintances from other meetings and times, and plenty of new folks eager to know you. I can hardly wait to greet you, to show you the New England you may not know and to exchange ideas, among all of us.

You members are ahead of the curve, as the media is to say. Not only are you bringing to light the plight of the bee, but even CNBC is talking on their financial shows about the “green shoots”…about local buying and local growing! Current phrases and jargon are taking on agricultural terms..a sure sign of importance of what we are doing.

I’ve just come back from a marvelous visit to the Ohio Division, hosted so graciously by Nancy Naugel and her branches. Julie Seifker became the new President and Nancy’s daughter, the new Vice President, Barbara Hochstettler and many others rejoiced when a contribution of $1500 from the division went to the Ambler Headhouse-headquarters project, with Julie Seifker giving an additional check of very generous proportions from the sale of topsoil, from her farm. How grateful I am, and I know that chairman Hazel Herring is very pleased. We still have a way to go, but remember, it is a one-time request. Once it’s done it’s done.

Next week, I will be going to Michigan and I am looking forward to being with so many friends there. In my travels on behalf of the other organizations,  I have seldom met with the courtesy, thoroughness and thoughtful preparation as given to me by the Woman National Farm and Garden Association. You are saluted by me.

Everywhere around me, apple trees, lilacs, dogwood and silver bells

move gently in the wind. Now, I wonder, did Spring cradle them there

as William Cowper suggests?

Young mothers, after a long winter, happily think “Spring Rocks”.

 “Daffodils…..Ten thousand saw I at a glance…..” William Wordsworth.

 The duck heist took place last week amid the daffodils on the Common and had the Bostonians saddened and shaking their Puritan heads in disbelief.  Over the weekend someone sawed off one of the bronze “Make Way for Ducklings” ducks and made off with it.  This theft in the Public Gardens has diminished Boston’s pleasure of its golden daffodils, Blue Squills and budded tulips.  By the time you arrive for the June meeting, we hope all will be right again.

 Wonderful letters, stories, recipes and reports are arriving: one of our scholarship students went to South America for research and encountered a rare speckled bear, deep in the forest. Another found that insects will not eat invasive plants which are crowding native plants. This poses a threat to our food supply for which insects are a vital link. Insects “eat locally” just as we are being urged to do.

 Jenny Rose Carey is conducting several different arboretum programs at our Ambler base. Also from Ambler comes news from a former staff member, Val Libbey, who is writing a book on Jane Haines, founder of the Ambler College. Val will attend our June meeting.

 A newsletter from the Clarkson Michigan branch has many useful reports on its plans and activities.  All of these Newsletters I have received point to the vitality and important community service provided by our members. How proud I am to be part of this ever-growing, ever-giving organization.

 One of the William Wordsworth lines that follows the quote above from “Daffodils” is “…my heart with pleasure fills.” That is how I feel about WNF & GA.
Faith
 
P.S. Please visit the News from Michigan blog for the Troy Branch program on Bees.