Zing Zang Zoom

Last Thursday, we had the honor of a visit from some of the Ringling Brothers circus performers. Magician Ringmaster Alex Ramos and several Ringling clowns spent the better part of Thursday afternoon roaming our showroom and warehouse. In case you weren’t aware, the Ringling Brothers Circus theme is magic this year. Alex and the clowns perform many different tricks and illusions throughout the show, including vanishing a real live elephant! There is also a great pre-show for all who attend if you show up an hour early. It was great to see Alex again. The last time we saw him, he was performing in “Mickey’s Magic Show,” a Disney production. You’ll definitely want to check out Zing Zang Zoom when it comes to your neck of the woods.

The Ringling gang and me in the showroom

To the Coast

If you’ve been reading the newspapers or watching the news, you would have noticed that California is experiencing quite the heat wave. Nothing new to us folks here in Fresno; it’s always a dry, hot Summer. With temperatures soaring between 102 to 105 SO FAR, it seemed like a good time to get out of town and into some cooler weather. One of Betty’s friends, knowing that I am a true green thumber and enjoy working in my yard, suggested that we take a trip to Grover’s Beach to visit Ron’s Nursery. Now, you might be asking yourself, “Where in the world is Grover’s Beach?” That’s what I said. It turns out that Grover’s Beach is a small town just the other side of Pismo Beach. So, Friday morning at 7:00, Betty and I hopped in the car and headed for Grover’s Beach. It was an easy 2.5 hour drive, and the best part was that I watched the thermometer in my car go from 100+ degrees down to a cool 62 degrees when we arrived.

Now, I have to tell you, I’ve been to many nurseries all over the state, but I have never been to one as nice as this one! From the moment we walked through the gates, I was speechless; there was so much to see, it took several trips through just to take it all in! Not only was there a wide variety of plants and statuary, but there was also a huge showroom of unique gift items. The displays were immense and extremely creative and unique, unlike any others I’ve ever seen. We were greeted by the owner himself, Ron, who couldn’t have been a nicer and gracious host. It was funny how much our businesses were alike when we talked about them. I made several purchases, in fact 3 cart loads, and of course, 2 new gnomes for my yard. I even picked up a unique new plant called the Chenille Plant — quite unique and something I’ve never seen before.

The Chenille Plant

Looking down at my watch, I realized that we actually spent 3 hours there and truthfully, we could have spent more! Time to load up the car and start thinking about lunch. If you are ever in the Pismo area and you are into gardening, do yourself a favor and check out Ron’s Nursery:

Ron’s Lifestyle Nursery
Grover Beach
1207 South 13th Street
Grover Beach, California
805-489-4747

Getting ideas

I’ll be building this this weekend

Figuring out how to load it all in the car

Main entrance to Ron’s Nursery

Another view of the entrance

Another view

With everything finally loaded into the car, we headed to San Luis Obispo for lunch. The great thing about this is that all these coastal towns are all close together, and it only took about 15 minutes to get to our next destination. We had lunch at a great place called Novu and actually sat outside to enjoy the weather and food. In fact, a stream runs past the outdoor section of the restaurant. After lunch, we walked around and did a little shopping. Betty suggested we head to Morro Bay to see yet another nursery. Of course, I was more than willing to oblige. Within about 20 minutes, we were in Morro Bay checking out our final destination point: Garden Gallery. Picked up a couple of items there and it was time to head home. Saturday, we celebrated the Fourth of July in Fowler, California, as always. It was a fantastic fireworks display. Before I knew it, Monday arrived and it was back to work.

MAGIC Live! Update

We are a little over a month away from the Magic Live convention, and since posting that we were going to be attending as dealers, we’ve already gotten many emails and phone calls from many of you who are also attending! I always look forward to meeting you. I just got an exciting email from Brian Platt, creator of Blackout: He has created a new coin effect that he has given Hocus Pocus the exclusive on, and it will be debuted at MAGIC Live! Brian will be there in person and will be popping in and out of our booth to show off his latest creation!

So that about wraps it up. Hopefully, the temperatures won’t get too high here this weekend. Stay cool.

Until next time,

Paul