Yesterday my friend picked 350 flowers. (We keep count so that we have an idea which deities we can make malas for, and the main picker is a counter sort of guy. This is the 10th week we've been way over 200 for the weekly malas project. For Vinayaka Chaturthi, the 'crew' picked over 1200 blooms, as we had decorating in addition to malas. (For reference, a box imported from Delhi for last year's Shivaratri contained around 200, but cost $120 Canadian.) They worked for over ten hours tying all the hanging decorations. It's been another late frost fall, so maybe one more week, perhaps 2. But it enabled the Vinayaka and friends weekly mala project to save a few dollars as I cut back on the mini-carnation order. Speaking of which, we got a couple more donors so that number went up some. My 'Stop complaining, do something!" voice in the ear is quieter now. Life is good. Aum Namasivaya