Tag Archives: fond du lac

Master Gardener Teaches Kiwanians How to Master Gardening

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Monday Morning

We had 19 members at the Retlaw Hotel on Monday morning along with our guest speaker, Eileen Blackburn from the Master Gardeners Club.  Bonnie Baerwald circulated the sign-up sheet again for the Relay for Life Brat Fry.  Charlene Pettit announced an outing to “Music Under the Stars” for August 13th for the “Kids From Wisconsin”.  No need to sign up but you’ll want to be there early (6:00PM ish) to get a good seat.  Gary Miller announced an InterClub to the Oshkosh Mid-Morning Kiwanis Club for Friday, July 25th.  Four members volunteered to attend.  Glen Treml had a “Happy Buck” for his 39th wedding anniversary on Friday.  Dan Leeds was the winner of the 50/50 Raffle drawing on Monday and he drew the Six of Hearts, not a winner.  Next week’s drawing will have 16 cards with four pay cards and a pot of at least $492.

Eileen Blackburn – Wisconsin Master Gardener

Eileen started her journey to be a Master Gardener back in 1995 when they bought a new house and she started landscaping it. Seven or eight years later she agreed to be on the Agnesian HealthCare Garden Walk. Her reputation got around and she volunteered to redo the courtyard at Pier Elementary School. After she removed all of the “junk” from the courtyard she was able to plant and expand the plantings to include spring bulbs, azaleas, and annuals. The eye-spy feature interactive game draws all the children in. They then become interested in all that grows within its walls. This garden brings much joy to all that see it, and exposes children to a very special garden inside the school.

This spring Eileen was approached to help out at the Galloway House. As Eileen so nicely said, the gardens at Galloway had been neglected for a number of years and really needed a lot of work. The Master Gardeners Club supported Eileen’s efforts to begin a systematic revitalization of the Galloway Gardens by donating money and plants in addition to volunteer hours to accomplish this huge task. Our own Dave Lefeber is a volunteer in this project. Eileen volunteers 30 – 40 hours per week in this “labor of love” and has taken on not only gardening but also mowing, trapping cats, maintenance and lots more.

Kiwanians Invited to Prairie Fest

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Monday Morning

We had 16 members at the Retlaw Hotel on Monday morning plus our guest speaker, Tracy McDermott from the Gottfried Prairie & Arboretum.  Bonnie Baerwald circulated the sign-up sheet again for the Relay for Life Brat Fry.  Charlene Pettit again circulated a sign-up sheet to gauge the possible interest in a “Music Under the Stars” outing.  Gary Miller is working on organizing an InterClub to the Oshkosh Mid-Morning Kiwanis Club on Friday, July 25th.  Their meeting is at 8:00AM and they’re usually done by 9:00AM.  Gary will look for volunteers next Monday.  Vickie Goldapske was the winner the 50/50 Raffle drawing on Monday and she drew the Ten of Clubs, a $10 winner.  Next week’s drawing will have 17 cards with four pay cards and a pot of at least $474.  Congrats Vickie.

Tracy McDermott – Gottfried Prairie & Arboretum

Tracy McDermott has been the Executive Director of the Gottfried Prairie & Arboretum since January 1st, 2014. Tracy came to talk about the upcoming Prairie Fest that will be held on Saturday, July 26th from 10:00AM – 3:00PM. Prairie Fest is held at the Gottfried Prairie and Arboretum on the UW-Fond du Lac Campus at 400 University Drive. Prairie Fest provides a day of activities for the whole family. Enjoy prairie tours, arts, demonstrations, and presentations by local experts. There will be Programs & Tours, an indoor and outdoor Prairie Playzone and Program Tents that will feature Chicken Farming, Lasagna Gardening, Beekeeping and Worm Farming.

Restored with seeds collected from plants found in the last original prairie remnants in Fond du Lac County, the 42-acre prairie located on the UW-Fond du Lac campus serves as a living snapshot of the wildlife and colorful landscape that was once common to this region. Adding a 4.5 acre formal arboretum representing eight types of Wisconsin forest communities, the Gottfried Prairie and Arboretum provides a unique opportunity for education and the enjoyment of our natural heritage. The prairie is home to many species of invertebrates, birds, and small mammals, but the mission of the Gottfried Prairie and Arboretum extends beyond maintaining a wildlife habitat.

Gary Miller Discusses Geocaching

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Monday Morning

We had 16 members back at the Retlaw Hotel on Monday morning.  Bonnie Baerwald started the sign-up sheet for the Relay for Life Brat Fry.  Charlene Pettit circulated a sign-up sheet to gauge the possible interest in a “Music Under the Stars” outing.  Gary Miller had a “Happy Buck” in honor of a friend who passed away last week.  Glen Treml was the winner the 50/50 Raffle drawing on Monday but he drew the King of Spades, not a winner.  Next week’s drawing will have 18 cards with five pay cards and a pot of at least $469.

Gary Miller – Geocaching

Gary Miller brought us his own program on Geocaching after the arranged speaker fell through.  Gary’s been geocaching for about 2½ years and had a number of interesting tales to tell.

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.  The only necessities are a GPS device or a GPS-enabled mobile phone so that you can navigate to the cache, and a Geocaching.com Membership.  Geocaches can be found all over the world. It is common for geocachers to hide caches in locations that are important to them, reflecting a special interest or skill of the cache owner. These locations can be quite diverse. They may be at your local park, at the end of a long hike, underwater or on the side of a city street.

Gary noted that there are anywhere from 2.5M – 3M “geocaches” that are placed worldwide.  He also noted that there are several dozen geocachers in the Fond du Lac area.  Gary was asked was he does geocaching and he had several reasons.  First was that he found it to be a very enjoyable hobby and secondly, he has learned all kinds of things about the areas that he’s explored while geocaching.

Thanks Gary for an interesting and unique program.