Dear Members,When I arrived at Joan and Michael’s at 10 AM yesterday, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only did they have a well-tended display gardens despite the summer’s heatwave, but they had prepared all of the needed materials for ensuring a highly successful workshop.
Not knowing how much of the hypertufa mixture would be needed for 13 participants who would be bringing all types and sizes of plastic containers, boxes and baskets for their project, they hauled 200 pounds of cement and two large bales of perlite and peat moss they had purchased for the Club from 3 different stores. In addition, they assembled a collection of tables, chairs, wheelbarrows, buckets and mixing tubs out onto their shady lawn areas.
Just in case, any of our members needed containers or small cardboard boxes, there were several dozen of each along with plastic sheeting, Pam spray, extra gloves, scissors and mason tools! Joan and Michael thought of everything we might need.
When Mike W, Joan and I started to plan this workshop we talked about a simple lunch for participants but as usual along with picking up some readymade wraps and brownies from Costco, Joan also made her scrumptious cucumber salad, melon and blueberry salad and tossed salad!
What a bounty of delicious treats and plentiful soft drinks awaited us after we cleaned up from our somewhat messy artistic efforts!
With a lot of sweat and toil over an hour and a half, Mike W. and Michael kept a steady stream of batches of the gooey mixture flowing onto the work tables. So the mixture didn’t dry out, the batches were small and as a result, each one was quickly scooped up to fill the forms while the next one was mixed up.
Since I never attended this type of workshop I didn't realize how much work and attention to detail it entailed!
For example for better quality, Joan and Michael had set up a sifter for the peat moss. To ensure correct follow-up treatment of our creations and to serve as a guide should we later attempt more adventures in hypertufa, Joan sent us home with a complete instruction set!
For artistic inspiration, Joan mentioned using some of her garden’s leaves and flowers to create nice impressions in the soft mix and many of the attendees added bits of them from her garden into their creation.
In the coming days, each time we look at our trough or troughs, we will remember how we spent that perfect day in their gorgeous gardens enjoying each other’s company due to their hard work and thoughtfulness. Big Thanks go to Joan and Michael for all their hard work planning and executing this workshop and to Mike Wicki for his sweat equity at mixing the batches to just the right consistency!
Kris Atwood
HCN President
