Capitola Begonia Festival Diary #1 – The Apprentice

 

On a lovely end-of-June Capitola Day, I sat on the deck with Nels Westman, a veteran Begonia Festival float builder.

He is not only a veteran float builder, but he is active in a thousand other Capitola community groups and projects.  More about that another time.

Nels described in as much detail as I could handle what goes into building a Capitola Begonia Festival Float.

Up to now, my level of understanding was based on sauntering down to the beach on Begoinia Festival Day, plopping down on a lawn chair, and doing my best to keep the sand out of my Cheetos while watching these water-borne bouquets float down the Soquel Creek.

There is a little more to it than that.

The Capitola Begonia Festival Committee provides the barge (an 8 X 12 foot floatation platform), floral wire used to attach the begonias to the structure, access to the begonia fields, and moral support in the form of mentorship and advice.

Each festival has a theme.  This year’s theme is “Beach Party”, so you can expect to see lots of variations on Frankie Avalon movies and Beach Boys records.

But representations within that theme – the engineering, construction and implementation – are all the responsibility of the individual groups competing for the coveted Grand Prize Award for the Capitola Begonia Festival Nautical Parade, September 5, 2010 at 1pm.

Building the float means coming up with the idea for the float itself, constructing a superstructure – usually out of plywood – and sending a cadre of volunteers to the begonia gardens in Monterey County to pick the flowers.

You would be amazed at how many flowers it takes to cover a float!  About one beer-flat per square foot!  But you’d be even more amazed at how many flowers these guys can pick in an hour or two – about 250 to 300 beer flats!

Somehow I managed to talk my way into helping with Capitola Village Residents Association (CVRA) float this season.  Clearly, there must have been a labor shortage. 

For more information, visit the Capitola Begonia Festival website.

Meanwhile, we’ll learn together as this adventure unfolds!

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