Somehow I thought this was a weekend event. I found out yesterday that it started today. I called both school districts to tell them not to call me. I regretted the financial loss at first, but quickly began liking the entire set up because I got to hang out with old friends.
I got to the conference at 7:30am for the group breakfast, chatting with Amanda from the extension office. Donna and her husband Cliff soon joined in, as well as Bret. There weren't too many members from the 2008 class. Deke and his wife were also there. I had been worried about Deke because his wife had health problems last summer and Deke stopped coming by the extension to care for her.
The morning sessions were general sessions in one open room. Dr. Gordon Wardell from the ARS bee Lab out of Tucson opened the session talking about the current state of health of our commercial honey bees. Why are they dying off? According to him, the reasons are many: global warming, loss of habitat, droughts, stress from traveling cross-country to pollinate almond, cranberry and pecan orchards, parasites, wet weather, pollution and pesticides all are factors for the declining numbers.
Liz Barta, a Certified Health Education Specialist followed Dr Wardell. She let us know that over 50% of all snake bites are with gardeners, and most of those gardeners are over the age of 60. (That gives me 50% protection against snake bites for a while longer!). The audience gasped as the audience today was well into their 60s, 70s and 80s.
In fact, I befriended an older woman today, Betty Rae from Rio Rico. A retired elementary school teacher originally from San Jose, CA, she's been living in the Grand Canyon State since 1990, so she's pretty much a bona fide Arizonan. She claimed she was 82 but she looked a good ten years younger.
"The problem with looking younger is that people expect more out of you!" she said ruefully, adding that gardening gets harder as you age. "You've got plenty of years left in you to garden!"
I hope so. But I also know that two direct paternal relatives of mine died of ovarian (or cervical?) cancer in their late 40s and early 50s.
Betty Rae and I compared sightings of illegal immigrants, since her neighborhood gets a lot of news attention because it's on a direct drug smuggling route out of Nogales.
"It's amazing the trash those people leave behind," she lamented. "I didn't know how bad it was until I saw it on the news...bags and bags of trash that volunteers gather up from peoples' ranches." We were both slated to attend separate sessions in the afternoon but promised to meet up again tomorrow.
I enjoyed today's sessions but at times had a hard time deciding which sessions to attend. There were always three speakers presenting something interesting at the same time in three different rooms. A presentation on penstemons took place at the same time I listened to John White, Assistant Curator from Chihuahuan Desert Gardens out of El Paso, give a slide presentation on the top ten native trees to grow in our area. As a Texan he favored all the oaks, but as a Arizonan I still favor the various acacias that have adapted well to the high desert. He had the Burr Oak, Honey Mesquite, Mexican Redbud, Emory Oak, Escarpment Live Oak, Desert Willow, Sweet Acacia, Arizona Sycamore, and White and Grey Oaks on his top ten list.
I helped Cado give a very informative presentation on Straw Bale gardening. I never realized you could use straw bales to plant a vegetable garden in! That woman is amazing and her passion for water conservation and gardening is infectious. The straw decomposes over time and has to be replaced with fresh straw or soil, but the idea is that plants can grow in straw when the straw is kept warm and moist.
The last hour-long presentation that I listened to was a short presentation on Ants and Termites, given by Dr Skip Judd who is also the Dean from UA-S right here in town. He's an ethmologist and gave us the most common ants and termites found in Arizona. My only complaint with his presentation is that he didn't talk about organic repellants to use on their mounds.
"You either should contact a professional exterminator who has access to pesticides you can't buy on the market, or you learn to enjoy watching them like you would enjoy watching the birds in your back yard" he said about ants and termites in one's back yard. When it gets hot here we get various ants coming out of holes in our back yard and nothing keeps them away. I hate using chemicals of any kind because of the pets. It's bad enough Sadie devoured a three-pound bag of bone meal yesterday; I don't need her nibbling on ant killer. She's going to be well-fertilized for the next few weeks!
Tomorrow is another full day of great speakers, to include Mary Irish, a reknowned Phoenix gardener, writer and photographer and author of several great books about native plants for the desert. I can't wait to meet her! I have some of her books. I will also learn about Mesquites, Vegetative propagation and Grasses of the Semi-desert grasslands.
The Sierra Vista Garden club, that awesome group of gardeners, gave away boxes of free seeds again. I picked up two samples of Tall Grama Grass. I'll experiment with those seeds and see how a small patch blends in with the Tall Fescue in the back yard. I'll also have to remember to give that club a few dollars to offset whatever they spent on the small plastic bags the seeds came in.
I wish, though, that this conference had been held over the weekend so that more people of all ages could attend. When I asked the club president why the dates this year for this event (this is the 16th year this is being held) was during the week, she replied "Because of Valentine's Day falling on the weekend."
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