MAY UPDATE

Hello Everyone,
We remain a very busy organization - lots to share with you.

• WANTED: We are in need of 2 volunteers. 
  • If you like to write and can help on occasion composing articles about Topsmead and Facebook posts and the like, we NEED you.  Please email Meg Begley at mbegleyct6@yahoo.com to help out. 
  • We would love to have someone help with scheduling a regular call for gardeners to work a couple of hours once every 6 weeks or so up at Topsmead - this work would help maintaining the flower gardens, other plantings, and butterfly garden. Please contact me here at this email address if you can contribute some time for this. 
• COME TO THE PICNIC! On June 8th from 10 AM to 2:30 PM we are hosting a members and bring-your-friends picnic at Topsmead. There will be some fabulous fun activities during the day. See the attached flyer. 
• The April 27th Field Work Day was a great success, given the challenging weather that day. We had 18 volunteers! And, despite being cold, mighty windy, and damp, everyone had fun. It was great to meet some of you for the first time in person!
• We raised $1,135 through Give Local - Many thanks to Meg Begley for her efforts and what fantastic 1st time results!
• Bob Orintas and Meg Begley are making good progress with our video-oral history project called 'Bob Orintas Remembers'.  They are working with an oral history/video expert developing a set of topics for a video series about life at Topsmead in Miss Chase's day. 
• Education programs just abound! In addition to high-schoolers monitoring the bluebird boxes, we have students building more boxes, and our newest addition is a program on butterflies for the Montessori school - the children had a field day visit, saw where the butterfly garden will be, had a presentation on butterflies and got to hunt for butterfly cocoons. Many thanks to Janet Blauvelt for spearheading these terrific educational partnerships up at Topsmead.
• The butterfly garden is progressing steadily!  It's been too wet at Topsmead to do too much work, but Patrick Ryan and John Blauvelt installed a rain barrel system to gather water from the bird blind to have for watering the butterfly garden in dry times (we could actually use a dry spell right about now!). Bob Orintas and Joanne and Ray Bertrand donated the bench which has been delivered, AND planting is beginning this weekend. Its a lot of work, but Diane Ryan, our project leader has it all well in hand. Thank you, Diane!  In addition, Ellen and Ray Oneglia offered the bench at their (O&G) cost and gave us free delivery.
• Our Garden Designer and Master Gardner Caroline King and her husband are planting a few bushes this weekend. The remaining planting session will occur at a later time depending on several factors. When Caroline is ready to finalize and water the garden, Diane will be in touch with dates for those whom she has on her list as interested in helping. 
  
  Until next time - hope to see you at Topsmead. 

Carol Gould, President FTSF