Monday, Oct. 24, 2016 – Grounds Keeper’s Meeting, Transplanting, Clean FLC, $25/night at Zion's Mercantile Hotel

Each Monday after our FM prayer meeting, the grounds keeping staff meet together in the “Mower Building” for a short overview of the week’s work plan. I noticed this week’s meeting was different because there were no mowers inside the building. They were all parked outside. In fact the building was completely clean inside. Everything was put away and the floor had been swept and mopped. 

I found out the mower building will be used this week for the huge community event “Boo-tiful Nauvoo” pumpkin carving. There will be over 500 pumpkins carved into jack-o’-lanterns to line the central boulevard of Nauvoo. This is a huge event for the town. People come from all over the local area to see the jack-o’-lanterns, the parade and “Boo-tiful Nauvoo” decorations. People come from as far away as Chicago!

Our workday started by transplanting rooted cuttings of Tahiti/Wilksiana/Acalypha plants. These are the stock or parent plants that will be used all winter to get more rooted cuttings from. We transplanted them, fertilized them and treated them with a systemic insecticide. Finally they were all watered and placed on the benches in the greenhouse to grow and mature.

The rest of our work day was back at the FLC, “Family Living Center” to continue last week’s cleaning of flowerbeds. There is still a lot to do. We spent most of our time cutting down all of the lily plants and hauling away their foliage. As the weather turns cold, they are all destined to be frozen back anyway and we are simply getting a jump on the cleanup.

Today we discovered there is a hotel room special being offered in Nauvoo. The Zion's Mercantile Hotel is offering rooms all November and December for only $25 per night. The offer is only to the families of missionaries but there are no blackout days. The offer includes Thanksgiving and Christmas! So anyone planning to visit parents or grandparents who are serving missions in Nauvoo, this is a very inexpensive room rate.