Thursday, April 15, 2010

April Diva Meeting

The meeting in full swing at Bubbalou’s Bodacious BBQ on Kirkman.


Today also happens to be Chris's birthday.  (The tiara suits you Chris!)


A special gift from Bubbalou's.



We did our raffle in the form of a Chinese gift exchange.  Lots of fun!  The Chrome Diva patch was the hot item of the night.



The whole gang with their winning prizes.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

The Divas Do A Little Farming


"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."   - Helen Keller

Last month Diva Keri was watching Channel 6 News and saw a segment about GrowGreen4Women, an organization that provides fresh produce from their small eco-friendly farm to residents of domestic violence shelters in Central Florida.  When Keri saw in the segment that Sarah and Nancy of GrowGreen4Women needed help in getting the spring planting underway, she knew that this would be a perfect fit for the Chrome Divas.  We had already done quite a bit of charity work with SafeHouse of Seminole, one of Central Florida's domestic violence shelters, so this was right up our alley.

On March 29th, Keri and Taz headed out to the farm in Eustis to assess the work that needed to be done and report back to us.  On Saturday April 10th, we traded our riding gloves for gardening gloves and headed out to the farm.  There were five Divas, 1 Divo (Sharon's husband Rob), and a truck bed full of landscape timbers that Keri had personally donated.

When we arrived, there was much to do.  Sarah and Nancy figured that if we worked most of the day, we would get a good start on it, making whatever was left once we were gone a little easier for them to handle.  They underestimated DIVA POWER.  By 2:00 we had dug up all the shrubs where the new beds were to be built, tilled the soil, cut the timbers, built the beds, and filled them all with a truckload of compost.  And that's after stopping for lunch!  It was all done.  Okay, even we had underestimated DIVA POWER.


The "Before" picture.

The Divas with Rob and Sarah.  Ready to get started. 

Bunny modeling her pink gardening accessories donated by Keri and Joni.

Hard at work removing shrubs and roots from the land.

Thank goodness Fireman Rob brought his trusty axe.  These roots were tough!

A little surprise waiting for us when we removed some of the stacked timbers! Sorry you two; we didn't see a "If this stack's a rockin'..." sign.

Beds are laid out.  Now the tilling. There may have been singing of the Green Acres theme song  around this time...
Applying beer therapy to Keri's tilling injury.

Perhaps this is no place for bunnies....

Um, Rob, is now really the best time for personal grooming?

Rob and Sharon cutting the timbers to size.

Okay, you guys didn't think I would post this one, did you?  Yes, that is Bunny shoveling poo.

Filling the beds with compost (aka POO.)

Lunch break.

All finished.
The "After" picture.  A job well done! (There's also another bed that isn't shown in the picture.)