'Music In The Garden' - Tour

In March of 2022 we accepted an invitation to be one of seven homes featured in a (Long Beach Peninsula) garden tour. This normally
annual event is a fundraiser by the Water Music Society to fund music programs in local schools. A good cause. On July 9th, from 10am to 4pm we opened our garden to some 400 visitors.

In Kathy's words "that's a lot of socializing". It was actually a fun experience and was 

of course, gratifying to have other gardeners confirm
that what we've created in our small spaces - was lovely, unique or clever (maybe they were just being kind :-).

We met some great folks, some of which we're now pursuing friendships with - and at the beach it's always nice to find people you have natural affinities with.

Our friend and neighbor Steve Kleinbart was kind enough (with pal Ron Hetteen visiting from Maui) to provide their musical talents. Sax and guitar provide a whole new dimension to a garden space!

One thing that was interesting was to see what others found fascinating that to us were - well, not at all noteworthy. Everyone sees things differently, I guess.

Scott and Donna Horenstein surprised us with a visit (from Vancouver) - and we had a nice dinner with them later at The Depot. 

We also opened the new studio (letterpress and grandkid hangout) to visitors, and many enjoyed poking their heads in. A really nice bonus to the tour was that we got to visit the other host-gardens on the following day. It was fun to see how others approach the garden creation process.  

Naturally, there was a lot of work that took place from March thru the event in early July - trying to get our garden looking as good as possible.  One big effort was building of a stone wall at the street entrance to our property. Friend Jerry Boileau worked fearlessly with me through pouring rain and winds to lay the foundation and construct this wall. Without his help and internal 'compass for level' - it wouldn't have turned out as nicely as it did. \mf