Dear Friends:
Well, we had the loveliest evening here on Wednesday night for the "Roses of Hudson County" Photo Contest Award Ceremony. We had roses galore and people galore and food galore, great magic, great songs in our rose singalong, and great fun! I had a wonderful time (and I hope everyone else did, too).
The First Prize winner was Mark Elliott, whose "Yellow Rose on Hudson Street" in Hoboken was exquisite. Second Prize went to Eileen Gaughan of Jersey City, a former flower shop owner (she knows her roses...or maybe, she knowses her roses...I know, I know, sorry) and Third Prize to Mickey Parani of Union City. The amazing Margaret Steele, magician extraordinaire, did rose magic tricks (how cool is that?). Our own incredible Judy Bro took time out from her ArtsEcho grantwriting to play and sing rose songs in a singalong with the entire audience (and when Judy tells you to sing...you cannot help but sing...and love it!) Ronn Yedidia, our musical director played a wonderful medlley of well-known songs about...let's see now...oh yes, roses (there are thousands of songs with the word "rose" in them...almost like the songs in Spanish with the word "corazon" which seems to be in EVERY song I hear). I baked my famous secret-recipe cheesecake, this time with rose petal topping. In short...a good time was had by all!! We'll have all of the photos up on our website this week.
Have you noticed that the roses are still blooming everywhere? They usually finish blooming by the 3rd week in June. I have NEVER seen a thing like it in the middle of July...EVER! But, then again, I've never seen a June that thought it was a rainy April. And that's not all...July seems to think it's May! Or maybe even October...this week we had someone in the store in a coat! I kid you not...a coat in July...
So....those glorious roses in pink, red, yellow, lavendar, that LOVE lots of water and coolish weather, just keep on blooming! Yay!
But here's the iffy part...it's not only the roses that love these conditions. In my (very) early morning walks throughout Weehawken and Union City I have seen more POISON IVY than I have EVER seen before. Lush, green, shiny, thriving, THREE-LEAVED, itchy, nasty, awful Poison Ivy. When I was manning (well, womanning) the Master Gardener Hotline in Bergen County several years ago, many of our calls were from people with poison ivy in their gardens and rashes all over their bodies. It's no joke. Since we are in an urban environment many people have never seen PI and don't know how dangerous it can be...but it's all over and it's BAD!
So check out this link and prepare to smell the roses and not get anywhere near the the poison ivy!
http://www.plantsgalore.com/articles/images/weeds/poison-ivy.jpg
(Anyone itching??? I start itching just thinking about it...)
Warm (and somewhat scratchy) regards,
Sandra and the ArtsEcho team, Lil (off to Washington, DC tomorrow), Judy, Arianna, Jackie (who sends regards from El Salvadore), Liz (from Wisconsin) and Allison
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