– A sequel to The Birdbath Quilt
It was late February and in the town of Somewhere—even though small banks of snow still lined the sidewalks, peoples’ thoughts were turning to signs of spring.
At the Oak Crest retirement community, great excitement was building because in one week’s time, the birdbath quilt wallhanging raffle was scheduled to get underway in the town.
Four double rolls of raffle tickets, each roll containing 1,000 tickets had been purchased. It had been decided that each ticket would cost two dollars. If all 2,000 tickets were sold the net profit would be $4,000. A roster of resident volunteers had been drawn up; four raffle ticket sites had been carefully selected: Emmy Lou Custer’s Nimble Thimble Quilt Shop; The Meets N’ Treats Bakery and Coffee shop; The Birder’s Nest, and the new Grocery Mart. Four lock and key cash boxes had also been purchased. The local newspaper, The Four Corners Chronicle had featured a front page colour photo of the wallhanging proudly held up for display by Tony Badowski and Edna Buchanan, (on the left) and Adrianna Wilson (Tony’s sister) and Janice Bethune (the most senior member of the five member Birds of a Feather quilt bee) on the right. Below the photo was a write-up giving a short history of how the quilt project began; the date when the raffle tickets would go on sale; the two dollar cost per ticket. Several residents wondered if the two dollar cost would make it too easy for some purchasers to buy too many tickets at one time. However, after some discussion, it was agreed that the residents could not be held responsible for the ethical behavior of customers. As one resident wisely stated: “This raffle is a plain and simple business enterprise and the more tickets we sell, the more choice we’ll have in landscaping possibilities.”
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On Tuesday morning, the week previous to the raffle, the five members of the Birds of a Feather Bee (Janice Bethune; Carole Fortescue; Fredericka (Freddie Hollis); Loretta Jimson and Jean MacKay, along with Edna Buchanan, (Carole Fortescue’s mother) met for their regular weekly quilt session. Carole had kindly brought along a dozen of her chocolate-banana muffins for the group to share as Janice Bethune had firmly stated some time ago that she did not bake.
As Janice brought in a tray of coffee cups, Jean asked Edna if everyone at Oak Crest was ready for next week’s raffle. Edna gave a small sigh. “Barring any unforeseen event, I guess we’re as ready as we can be; however, I think we’re all feeling a little over-whelmed by the scope of the project. Not only have I been exposed to landscape design; I’ve also been introduced to a whole new vocabulary since Tony showed us a book titled, “Gardenology”. It’s a botanical dictionary which, he said, we might find useful as we navigate through the garden seed catalogues and the on-line nurseries as many were using the Latin names. He said that the botanical name will make it easy for the garden center to point out the exact plant you wish to purchase.”
“Changing the subject Edna, when is the birdbath fountain construction scheduled to start?” asked Loretta.
“Tony said mid-April, weather permitting.”
“Wow!” said Jean, “time is sure moving quickly.”
“It certainly is and everyone is very excited—especially Tony.”
As Edna tacked on that last comment the sparkle in her eyes did not go unnoticed.
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