Cali, Day 2: Pedal Pushers

pedal pushers are a group of volunteers for the Lutherans that work on floats for the rose bowl. we volunteer our time and work on any of the floats in order to pay for ours. in the building we were in, 9 floats were being worked on. i'll try to explain how it all works in a (large) nutshell.

there are different design companies that employ their own artists, florists, workers, etc full time. there are other workers for these companies that work part time (as in the final week) when all the final live flowers go on. every square inch on the float has to be covered with some kind of organic material. this includes things like: ground up rice (white), a million different kinds of seeds, flowers, flowers ground up in a blender (no joke), roses, gerber daisies (these cost $6 a piece!), carnations, mums, other extremely gorgeous flowers..... etc. some of the flowers are grown in CA but most of them are out of season and many come from columbia. here is a (blurry) chart of what the different seed color options are:

flowers go on with glue. there are 3 different kinds: white, sticky (like rubber cement) and super sticky (like super glue). i don't understand why certain kinds are used but that's just the way it is. so in the warehouse there is a booth like this, where this guy's job is to give you whatever kind of glue you need and the proper applicator tool.
there is a flower barn where people make assembly lines and have to cut stems the exact length. seriously, if they are not, someone will come by and make you re-do. then the vials are stuck in huge trays, counted and set in their appropriate spot for the float they'll be going on.

flowers stay in the barn until they are needed for the floats, and then you see them all over the floor, like this:
there are a million people in one barn and so many jobs to do. today i had 4 different jobs:
1) plucking the mums off of their stem (with NO stem remaining) for the ronald mcdonald float's hamburger
2) literally being a pedal pusher and having to cover the words "the lutheran hour" with white carnation pedals (which is a lot like doing a mosaic! it was the perfect job for me.
3) putting gerber daisies and roses on the float
4) making the "burning bushes" by covering willow sticks with ground up mum leaves (you cover them with white glue and get mum dust everywhere!) here is our little group in charge of getting them done and looking for a good home for them before going on the float.

surprisingly the building is cold..... we didn't know what "cold" really meant to cali folk, but we had overcast skies and rain today and it was chilly in there. not to mention the air conditioner was going on and off the entire time.

my mom is LOVING all the color and flowers and took a close up picture of what the color looks like on the float. it really is gorgeous. the lady in charge of our float said there were at least 15,000 flowers on it.

if you happen to be a float driver, this is what the driver's seat looks like, complete with a fire extinguisher on the side. on some floats the driver sometimes has to spend the night inside because there is so much work to be done on the door. that is a job i could not handle.
i'm sure i'm forgetting a bunch of things but here is a view from the overlook of the warehouse:how much does one of these cost? someone threw out an estimate that a small one with all volunteer labor would be around $40,000!
the prize? pride
more to come!