Tabling at the Butterfly Festival
/The annual Butterfly Festival at the Springfield Botanical Garden was held last weekend. It had rained a lot before the event and was still sprinkling as I was setting up; everyone was relieved when the day was dry after that! The local Missouri Master Naturalist chapter had two tables with several activities/topics: Highway 13 Butterfly trail, trees needed by butterfly/moth caterpillars, a butterfly symmetry craft, bugs, and rotten logs to explore. My collection of bookends worked to keep the items on the table from blowing off the table.
Over the course of the day, we had over 900 people visit our tables! I brought most of the materials in my car and was relieved that I had three helpers for each of the two shifts (9-12 and 12-3). One came early and helped me wrangle the table clothes onto the tables (with the corners tied at the ends to keep them securely on the tables and out of the mud). The pictures above are of the tables before the crowds arrived.
The mosaic below is from the butterfly symmetry craft. We often had a line waiting to make their butterfly and it was a challenge to get a picture of most of the creation before they moved on to the next activity.
The rotten log activity looked more like mulch than logs by the end of the day. We were allowed to leave it under a nearby cedar which made cleanup a simple matter of folding up the tarps.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted…but exhilarated that we had such a great turnout for the Butterfly Festival. I didn’t have time to look at other activities/tables – but they must have been great since everyone that we encountered at our tables seemed to be enjoying the day.
