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Full weekend of events in Glen Ellen

We spent the past couple of weeks in New York visiting our second son, Gabriel Holbrow, and his wife, Hilary, in Ithaca, N.Y. With a little time out for touring the Finger Lakes Wine Country, we enjoyed our East Coast sojourn.

  Returning home, flying over San Francisco Bay, the winds were whipping up whitecaps. Expecting a shaky landing, we were happily surprised to land smoothly and safely. Returning home to Glen Ellen late that night, the winds were still fierce, whipping the trees in our yard in a bouncing frenzy.

  This coming weekend, two Glen Ellen events that you will thoroughly enjoy are scheduled. First up is the Saturday, June 2, 25th anniversary celebration at Glen Ellen’s Quarryhill Botanical Gardens. Many public activities are planned. However, you must reserve your place; I suggest you do that today.

  Jane Davenport Jansen’s dream was to create an Asian garden of superb quality and today, long after Jane’s death, that dream thrives. Much of Quarryhill has been created through the quarter-century continued efforts of biologist Bill McNamara.

  He joined Jansen’s team early in its formation and has participated in multiple collecting trips throughout the wilds of Asia bringing home seed to create the beautiful gardens that now grace that site, just north of the Glen Ellen exit off Highway 12.

  In the early ’70s when I first came to Glen Ellen to visit my college roommate Judy Laursen, she lived on Three Springs Ranch, then owned by Jerry and Betty Lou Hutton. The mock orange trees that lined the driveway, greeted me with their heady scent each spring morning. It was there I fell in love with our town. Three Springs Ranch was sold to Jansen and Quarryhill Botanical Gardens were born.

  Quarryhill’s Spring Celebration will include a plant sale, auction, special garden tours and guest speaker, Warren Robert from the UC Davis Arboretum. To make your reservations, call 996-3166. 

  The following day, Sunday, June 3, the Bouverie Preserve of Audubon Canyon Ranch in Glen Ellen will be holding the second annual celebration of the life of author MFK Fisher. The Sunday event, called “The Art of Eating” takes place from 1 to 4:30 p.m. and will celebrate the life and times of MFK and other “Women Who Change The Way We Eat.” Food and wine samples will be offered from many renowned chefs and wineries in the Valley. There will also be live and silent auctions for prizes ranging from culinary inspired trips to local delights. For more information on this event, call 415-868-9244.

  While guests at the event will enjoy some history of Fisher and her friend, David Pleydell Bouverie (who would be 100 this year), they are also aiding the educational programs of the nonprofit ACR, a system of wildlife sanctuaries in Sonoma and Marin counties. The preserves (including Bouverie Preserve) offer first-hand experiential nature-based educational hikes to more the 6,000 Bay Area school children annually. This important fundraiser helps guarantee continuation of these important educational hikes. I’ll see you there on Sunday.

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  Share your good news with friends and neighbors in Glen Ellen. Call or write me at 996-5995 or P.O. Box 518, GE 95442. Or email me at creekborrom@earthlink.net.