By Pamela West-Finkle
Thank you to everyone who made it out to the annual Library Party, held on Saturday, July 29th. It’s always wonderful to share food and conversations with the patrons and friends who made our community so amazing. We appreciate your support and are happy to serve each and every one of you.
Just a reminder that our annual Garden Tour is scheduled for Saturday, August 5th from 11 am to 4 pm. Maps will be available for sale that morning starting at 10 am for $15 each. No dogs are allowed on the properties, but children are free. Debbie Abbate will once again provide bake sale items for you to purchase as snacks for your journey. Please understand that no maps will be sold in advance. All gardens will be marked with a bouquet stake of plastic flowers. You may visit the gardens in any order.
Our All Together Now Summer Reading Program workshops in July were a great success with the Andes Central School CROP children. Thirty-three children were registered for the programs, and each child took home their special garden kit with gloves, pollinator seeds, and a planting tool, bookmark, and butterfly stake.
In Birgitta Brophy’s workshop, they were given the options to vote on various fruit plants and planters that the library will purchase as part of our edible landscape. They chose some very nice looking planters and it looks like strawberries will be a primary ground cover in some of the beds, while blueberry bushes and dwarf apple trees took the top votes. She then took them around the library grounds with stakes showing pictures of various edible plants and pollinating flowers, teaching them about sun/shade plants, height differences, and placement around the various zones. At the end of the workshop, she handed out cups with fresh blueberries, strawberries, gooseberries, and currents for them to taste.
Carla Hegeman Crim and Bonnie Dennison brought beautiful edible flowers from the Birdsong Community Garden. Due to possible allergies, the children did not eat the flowers, but learned about them, smelled them, passed them around, then used them to decorate a picture of a wedding cake. Some wonderful creations took shape, we then took the children outside to fill our first planter. They dug right in, feeling the dirt and spreading it out, then planted some tomatoes, radishes, and cucumbers in the bed and hanging baskets.
Marguerite Uhlman-Bower’s Music of the Plants presentation has not taken place yet at the time of this writing, but I have personally experienced this workshop and am so excited for the children to interact with the plants. There is a strong connection made between human and plant life force when the plant’s “voice” is made audible through the musical tones of the machine.
Edible Landscape clarification:
I have heard a few misinformed rumors around town that some community residents are concerned that our edible landscape will be invading the Veteran’s Monument. I want to clarify to the community that the only planting we plan on in Bohlmann Park is possible blueberry and current bushes along the streamside with maybe a couple of dwarf apple, pear or plum trees. The Delhi American Legion voted on July 12th to allow the library and the Andes Garden Club to replace the dying evergreen bushes with the transplanted boxwood bushes in front of the library, and to take up the sod in the inner circle and plant tulips, then red, white, and blue annual flowers in the Spring. We seek only to improve the monument and we are more than happy to meet with anyone who has concerns and wishes to receive more information about the project.
We have received our first $2,500 grant from the Library Fund of the Community Foundation of South Central New York to go towards the purchasing of all plants and supplies for the edible landscape and additional excavating and caretaking labor.
Four County Library Road Trip
The Four County Library System Road Trip has brought some wonderful visitors to our library, many of whom have expressed their delight at our adorable little library and our wonderful bathroom mural. We have had many visitors who have already visited more than 20 or 30 libraries. You receive a prize for every ten libraries, and there are some amazing historic buildings to see along the tour, so if you want to participate, you have until September 1st. We have passports and maps available for pick up at the circulation desk and at the stamping station.
Community Day Sale!
We have a huge number of excellent DVD donations available that will be brought down to the porch on Community Day and offered up at five for $1 or fill a bag for a donation. We will keep the sale books and audio books upstairs for your perusal as well. If you still have a DVD player or you want to see what books we might have available, please be sure to stop by the library between 11 and 3.~