WINE AND ROSES: The Rose Parade and Exploring Wineries in California
May I give you a rose? THE ROSE PARADE WITH ROAD SCHOLARS We've always wanted to see The Rose Parade and when the trip appeared in a Road Scholars email, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. The program included working on floats, "band fest", a grandstand seat at the parade, and an up-close view of the floats at "float fest". On Friday we volunteered to help decorate floats. Our "float barn" (a big warehouse) had 6 floats in various stages of completion. We cut and prepared flowers for three of them. The roses and Dutch Irises came to us in 5-gallon buckets (75 rose stems). Our job was to cut them to about 3-4 inches, strip the leaves and put them in vials with water and preservative. Luckily, they had already been "de-thorned". These would then be transferred to the floats. David worked the guillotine cutter, I would strip the leaves, and we both helped put them in vials. Our group processed at least 50 buckets of roses = 3750 ro...