St. Paddy's Day Pickling

sunrise on Mountain Island Lake

Our community pickleball club held a St. Patrick's Day round robin yesterday. The day began with a beautiful sunrise, as shown above. But right after the volunteers got the two tennis courts striped with painters tape so that we could have a total of six courts for the day, it began to rain. The luck of the Irish was with us, though, as the storm quickly passed. We ended up with sunny, blue skies for the day.

Around 70 of our club members participated in the games, so with the limited number of courts each person only got to play 3 or 4 games in the scheduled time period. But some matches ended early, so I did get in an extra game at the end before it was time to go eat.

Some of the guys grilled up hamburgers and hot dogs, and there was a selection of chips, candy and cookies to go along with those. It was nice to be able to sit around the pool deck, which overlooks the lake, and catch up with friends. My pickleball companions who don't live here were a bit green with envy 💚💚💚

St. Paddy's Day social

Went to a Garden Party, Everyone Was There!

Jim's landscape architecture company, SWT Design, recently completed renovations on new office space. The original building is a pre-1900's Queen Anne home, to which they added additional design studio space five years ago. When the one story stucco 1920's commercial building went on the market a few years ago, they snatched it up. The design team came up with a way to join the buildings together with an enclosed walkway. Everything about the renovation was as green as possible, with energy efficient windows, use of renewable products, pervious pavers in the parking lot to prevent water runoff, use of rain barrels to collect water, and the crowning glory - a green roof on the stucco building. Not only does the green roof deflect the hot sun, it also has a wonderful garden with various types of plants ranging from drought lovers to tomatoes and herbs. The stairway to heaven is wrought iron and spiral, leading guests and employees up to an urban oasis complete with a sunshade and patio furniture.

All of the other plant materials on site are either natives to Missouri or used due to their ability to provide additional protection from water runoff. The amount of plants used, as well as the small pond they installed, help to provide a habitat for birds, bees and butterflies in an area of the town where concrete is king.

SWT decided to have a zero waste garden party on 09/09/09 to celebrate the addition of studio space as well as their successful year, despite the economy. The invitations were all sent via email so there was no paper waste. A local combo provided easy listening music. The food and beverages were all locally grown or produced, and were served on compostable plates. All the glass, paper and cans used at the party were recycled. About 300 people filtered in and out during the 4 hours of the open house, drawn no doubt by the phenomenal weather and an opportunity to hear good news instead of bad. The party was quite a success, and I think we need to send a message to Kermit, via email of course, that it IS easy being green.