AAARRGGGG I just typed out an entry and then lost it. Stupid computer!
Well Peter held his promise of teaching me how to drive the John Deer tractor. Wasn't on it more than 20 minutes and then decided to get off and try again later. It was a little intimidating I will admit. Tons of knobs and gears. I do know how to put the emergency brake on though, simple just put the scoop down.
I spent the last 3 days mowing part of the grounds. It was really easy to get the hang of. You just have to remember when to stop and start the blades rotating. Haven't figured out the patter to do it in though to get the most for your circuit. The John Deer mower is way easier to work than the Kubota one. The John Deer has a steering wheel while the Kubota has the levers on either side that you move. That takes a bit to get the hang of but is the more maneuverable one of the bunch. I was on that about 15 minutes and called it quits... way too confusing to work properly. I was doing a pretty good job mowing for my first time all things considered. And now I can put that on my resume. Not that it will help that much but at least I now know how to do it. The only thing with the John Deer is that the steering is really loose and easy to turn so when I got into my truck afterward the steering felt hard even though it is one of the easier vehicles to steer that I have driven before. I just have calluses now on my palms, but they will come off with Nivea or a least heal. They don't look like they are there but I know.
I also helped tickle the potato plants yesterday. Basically just moving the top soil around to find the potatoes that are growing on the top. It is really interesting and amazing the amount of potatoes just three rows will produce. It was a lot of fun to get out there and dirty up your hands just to see what your hard work of nurturing, weeding and watering can produce. Of course if the weather changed a bit we would be able to get some more but I don't think that that will happen anytime soon. Helen made the new potatoes with green beans and garlic and rosemary chicken for lunch.
I have some Cauliflower and Broccoli frozen in my fridge right now at home, waiting for me to make Baked Cauliflower and Ziti with. It is amazing how good fresh produce tastes. It almost makes me want to get a house right now just so I can have a garden. I know that when I do finally get a house I will have a vegetable garden and a lemon tree at least. I love fresh lemonade, nothing can beat it!
Also on the grounds we have 2 fig trees, 2 plum trees, and Helen's Herb garden. Any time you pass by you can just smell the herbs and they taste amazing. Helen used some in lunch today. There is also a patch of jasmine growing by the steamboat house and it smells amazing. It really helps make up for having to open the house 1.5 hours earlier than you are supposed to on a Saturday for a building rental.
Overall been a good week and not a whole lot more going on.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Folk Fest Summary
Well the Museum just got done with the General Sam Houston Folk Life Festival. It could have been a better success.
1. It rained Monday and Tuesday. By rained I mean poured so that meant there was hardly a chance it would clear up and be dry for the weekend, especially since it was fore casted with 30-50% chance precipitation all week. Yet I put my foot down and it said it wasn't going to rain and it didn't rain until Sunday morning.
2. Sunday morning it poured early in the morning. Nothing could be done about it. It just affected the museum grounds. Which had already been affected by the rain earlier in the week and the people walking on the grounds. (I'll talk more about the grounds in a minute.)
3. Because of the Swine Flu or H1N1 Flu as it is more professionally known, there were NO kids on Friday. Which is set aside as the educational day for the festival. Of 39 schools that scheduled to attend, 26 cancelled within the 2 days before. (We only found that out because I was tired of waiting in the Rotunda on Friday for kids to show up that never did.) The schools were required to cancel because from higher up the ISD's all school activities outside, field trips and extra curricular had been canceled. So of the 5,000 students expected to attend, maybe 500 showed up and this is being generous with the number.
4. Webb society decided to do a bake sale again this year which I get myself into heading again. Made enough cookies to sell some 200 bags turning a $1 profit for each bag after taking out the 46 that I spent on making the cookies and such. Well there are bags sitting on my dining room table right now. Since the kids didn't come we hardly sold any of the cookies. We even resorted to 2 bags for $1. I don't know how much we even made off those.
5. There were twice the number of food vendors this year as last because the person in charge of food vending didn't put a cap on the number of entries. So there was already going to be hostilities there. Well when the kids didn't show up, not only Webb, Folk Fest, and the Museum lost out of money but so did the food and craft/ product vendors.
6. Webb also spent money on binding cook books. I think that possibly 6 were sold, out of 50. Assuming they (the ones selling the goods and books) were able to keep up with the tally sheet I gave them. Also had left over coloring books from last year that we tried to sell, I'm not even sure we sold one.
7. The grounds looked amazing before; no I'm not sure that there is a correct way to describe them. They look awful because of the rain.
8. That reminds me, the Gulf Coast Boys were supposed to be here all weekend to pick up the trash around the grounds. Well after the lack of turn out on Friday they decided not to come the rest of the weekend. At least they told Folk Fest about it but that meant that the Volunteers had to pick up the slack.
9. There weren't as many volunteers as we would have liked there to be had we had the large group. But there wasn't so it really didn't hurt us this time.
10. Haven't seen the ducklings....
The bright things about this weekend:
1. There was no rain Friday or Saturday or Sunday afternoon. We are only open in the afternoon on Sunday. The sun was out. Heck it was hot and muggy but way better than it could have been.
2. Saturday wasn't as bad as it could have been with the Swine Flu. People still showed up and the weather was nice. There were things being sold and spirits were higher all around.
3. Sunday some of the food vendors didn't bother to come back. That meant that the ones that were there were able to scrap off a profit, if hardly.
4. I now have a new duty as assigned as a photographer. Last week I went around taking pictures of the grounds as before shots. I did some during on Saturday. (Side note: got an excellent one of port-a-potties underneath the Sam Houston Memorial Museum: A National Historic Landmark Sign.) Those were more of how the damage is caused. Trackers, vans, trucks from people driving in to set up. The high traffic areas, that sort of thing. Then there are the after shots... big divots in the ground, mud everywhere. It doesn't look good at all.
5. Friday turned out to be relaxing with out the school groups there. Saturday was as well for the most part. I heard the same about Sunday.
6. Thursday all of the tours for this week called to cancel because of the ISD's being grounded. That gives us more time to work on getting the grounds and our heads back in order for tours.
7. Some sodas were liberated for the Museum.
8. The dutch oven cooking was amazing. Amazing as always. We even started a Donation tub that I heard racked in some money.
This really isn't a plus or minus just more of a thing. Got the kitchen cleaned out. Then spent some time working on getting the kitchen cleaned and the stuff in the kitchen, like the crockery and the dutch ovens. We rinsed them off, scrubbed the dirt off and then ended up rubbing them down with shortening. My hands are fairly exfoliated now.
And Palmolive works wonders. Hands covered in grease, ashes, dirt, rust, etc. I turn on the hot water obviously to help get it all off and grab the dish soaps, it has to help cuts grease right. At least a little bit. Well let me tell you that stuff does work and it works wonders! One go with a glob of it hands were spot less. Helen and I even went into the office to show Mike and Rebecca the before and after to praise Palmolive.
1. It rained Monday and Tuesday. By rained I mean poured so that meant there was hardly a chance it would clear up and be dry for the weekend, especially since it was fore casted with 30-50% chance precipitation all week. Yet I put my foot down and it said it wasn't going to rain and it didn't rain until Sunday morning.
2. Sunday morning it poured early in the morning. Nothing could be done about it. It just affected the museum grounds. Which had already been affected by the rain earlier in the week and the people walking on the grounds. (I'll talk more about the grounds in a minute.)
3. Because of the Swine Flu or H1N1 Flu as it is more professionally known, there were NO kids on Friday. Which is set aside as the educational day for the festival. Of 39 schools that scheduled to attend, 26 cancelled within the 2 days before. (We only found that out because I was tired of waiting in the Rotunda on Friday for kids to show up that never did.) The schools were required to cancel because from higher up the ISD's all school activities outside, field trips and extra curricular had been canceled. So of the 5,000 students expected to attend, maybe 500 showed up and this is being generous with the number.
4. Webb society decided to do a bake sale again this year which I get myself into heading again. Made enough cookies to sell some 200 bags turning a $1 profit for each bag after taking out the 46 that I spent on making the cookies and such. Well there are bags sitting on my dining room table right now. Since the kids didn't come we hardly sold any of the cookies. We even resorted to 2 bags for $1. I don't know how much we even made off those.
5. There were twice the number of food vendors this year as last because the person in charge of food vending didn't put a cap on the number of entries. So there was already going to be hostilities there. Well when the kids didn't show up, not only Webb, Folk Fest, and the Museum lost out of money but so did the food and craft/ product vendors.
6. Webb also spent money on binding cook books. I think that possibly 6 were sold, out of 50. Assuming they (the ones selling the goods and books) were able to keep up with the tally sheet I gave them. Also had left over coloring books from last year that we tried to sell, I'm not even sure we sold one.
7. The grounds looked amazing before; no I'm not sure that there is a correct way to describe them. They look awful because of the rain.
8. That reminds me, the Gulf Coast Boys were supposed to be here all weekend to pick up the trash around the grounds. Well after the lack of turn out on Friday they decided not to come the rest of the weekend. At least they told Folk Fest about it but that meant that the Volunteers had to pick up the slack.
9. There weren't as many volunteers as we would have liked there to be had we had the large group. But there wasn't so it really didn't hurt us this time.
10. Haven't seen the ducklings....
The bright things about this weekend:
1. There was no rain Friday or Saturday or Sunday afternoon. We are only open in the afternoon on Sunday. The sun was out. Heck it was hot and muggy but way better than it could have been.
2. Saturday wasn't as bad as it could have been with the Swine Flu. People still showed up and the weather was nice. There were things being sold and spirits were higher all around.
3. Sunday some of the food vendors didn't bother to come back. That meant that the ones that were there were able to scrap off a profit, if hardly.
4. I now have a new duty as assigned as a photographer. Last week I went around taking pictures of the grounds as before shots. I did some during on Saturday. (Side note: got an excellent one of port-a-potties underneath the Sam Houston Memorial Museum: A National Historic Landmark Sign.) Those were more of how the damage is caused. Trackers, vans, trucks from people driving in to set up. The high traffic areas, that sort of thing. Then there are the after shots... big divots in the ground, mud everywhere. It doesn't look good at all.
5. Friday turned out to be relaxing with out the school groups there. Saturday was as well for the most part. I heard the same about Sunday.
6. Thursday all of the tours for this week called to cancel because of the ISD's being grounded. That gives us more time to work on getting the grounds and our heads back in order for tours.
7. Some sodas were liberated for the Museum.
8. The dutch oven cooking was amazing. Amazing as always. We even started a Donation tub that I heard racked in some money.
This really isn't a plus or minus just more of a thing. Got the kitchen cleaned out. Then spent some time working on getting the kitchen cleaned and the stuff in the kitchen, like the crockery and the dutch ovens. We rinsed them off, scrubbed the dirt off and then ended up rubbing them down with shortening. My hands are fairly exfoliated now.
And Palmolive works wonders. Hands covered in grease, ashes, dirt, rust, etc. I turn on the hot water obviously to help get it all off and grab the dish soaps, it has to help cuts grease right. At least a little bit. Well let me tell you that stuff does work and it works wonders! One go with a glob of it hands were spot less. Helen and I even went into the office to show Mike and Rebecca the before and after to praise Palmolive.
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