Party in—and for—the Sawtooth Botanical Garden
The Sawtooth Botanical Garden will host two of the valley's largest celebrations of summer gardens in full bloom on Saturday, July 28. Garden enthusiasts can attend Sawtooth Botanical Garden's 17th annual Garden Tour in downtown Ketchum from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The "secret garden"-themed tour includes seven private, diverse gardens.
Garden tour tickets are available at Moss Garden Center, Sun Valley Garden Center, Webb and The Open Room. Tickets cost $35 for Sawtooth Botanical Garden members and $45 for nonmembers, and $50 tickets include an individual membership. Tickets may also be purchased at the gardens on the day of the tour.
Later that evening, Gimlets in the Garden, the Sawtooth Botanical Garden's annual garden party, takes place at 11 Gimlet Rd. in Ketchum from 6-9 p.m. on the grounds of the valley's public garden. Proceeds from both the garden tour and the party benefit educational programs and garden development at Sawtooth Botanical Garden.
At the Gimlets in the Garden party, garden lovers will enjoy the signature gimlet cocktail, live music by King Louie & the Chaperones and dinner by Sayvour, all amid the blooming perennial gardens on site. The event features a silent auction with goods and services up for bid, including getaways to wine country and Idaho's mountains, a Sun Valley skiing package, gardening services and products from local nurseries and landscaping companies, fitness packages, a guided canoe trip and picnic for five on Silver Creek and Nordic ski passes. Many items are available now at the online auction at www.biddingforgood.com.
"Sawtooth Botanical Garden's auction is generously supported by our valley's businesses," said Executive Director Kathryn Goldman. "There's something for everyone."
A short, live auction will offer a Punta Mita, Mexico, vacation, a selection of wines from a private cellar and jewelry from Christopher & Co.'s Boulder Mountain Collection.
The evening event welcomes all garden enthusiasts, and walk-ins are welcome. Sawtooth Botanical Garden is on the corner of state
Highway 75 and Gimlet Road. Tickets for Gimlets in the Garden are $125 per person. Advance reservations may be made by calling Sawtooth Botanical Garden at 726-9358.
Camp Rainbow Gold escorts readied
Join more than 500 bikers and supporters from all over the Pacific Northwest to support Idaho's children diagnosed with cancer as they make their journey to Camp Rainbow Gold at Cathedral Pines north of Ketchum.
The ride starts from Bellevue City Park at 300 Elm St. and delivers campers to their week away from the stresses of everyday life with cancer. Bikers and supporters will arrive between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to wait for the buses on Sunday, July 29.
For $10, Mahoney's Bar and Grill will provide pulled pork sandwiches, chips and coleslaw to all participants with 100 percent of all funds raised to benefit Camp Rainbow Gold.
"There is no registration fee for this ride," said Ride Organizer Pat Pacheco. "It's an open non-club sponsored ride for kids."
For more information, contact Pacheco at 539-6885.
Some tickets available to annual Sun Valley Writers' Conference
For four days each August, some of the world's best writers and thinkers—fiction and nonfiction writers, journalists, playwrights, poets and filmmakers—talk about their work.
The Sun Valley Writers' Conference will celebrate its 17th annual gathering of readers and writers from Aug. 17-20 at Sun Valley Resort. Though full event passes are sold out, individual event tickets to several of the talks in the pavilion are available for $35 at local bookstores and the door prior to each talk as space is available.
Speakers are Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs, Tom Brokaw on America's future, Jennifer Homans on ballet and Paul Hendrickson on Hemingway.
Additionally, the Sun Valley Writers' Conference is a nonprofit organization that always includes scholarship students and admits teachers and students free of charge. For details, visit www. svwc.com.
Children's Choir spreads joy
During the next two weeks, people around the Wood River Valley will have the chance to see singing performances by orphans from Peru and Liberia organized in a choir called the Matsiko World Orphan Choir.
Born from a heart for every forgotten child in the unreached corners of the world, International Children's Network began its choir program in 2008, with the first U.S. tour of Matsiko Children's Choir.
This week, they can be found at the Hailey's Farmers' Market on Thursday, July 26, at 3 p.m.
Check www.icnchildren.net for more information and added appearances.
The choir's performances here are sponsored by Pawan and Helen Mehra of Sun Valley and facilitated through the International Children's Network.
'Das Barbecu' entertaining audiences
Reports from audiences who have seen Company of Fools' "Das Barbecu" have been resoundingly encouraging, and there are still a few days left to enjoy it before all that's left is other people's memories.
The musical opera with a Texas flavor is basically Wagner's epic Ring Cycle operas reset at the homestead called Valhalla, with characters Wotan and Fricka, the perpetually feuding patriarch and matriarch of the tale. Siegfried is a singing cowboy who rescued his sweetie, Brünnhilde, from 20 years of banishment on a mountain only to nearly be trapped into marriage by the trashy, tacky, yet ultimately good-hearted Gurtrune.
The entire show is performed with just five actors playing more than 30 zany characters.
Fans of "Always Patsy Cline" will be excited to see Debra Wagoner back along with Rachel Abrams, Beth Hilles, Duke Lafoon and Mike Tilford.
The show runs from today through Saturday at the Liberty Theater in Hailey. Tickets and times vary. Call 578-9122 or visit www.companyoffools.org.
Sawtooth Music Festival lineup is back and it's huge
The Sawtooth Music Festival in Stanley is on this weekend, July 27-28, and tickets are still available.
Among the bands starting at 7 p.m. Friday are Rose's Pawn Shop, Shovels & Rope and Langhorne Slim. Saturday starts at noon with School of Rock-Hollywood Hotel, Hollow Wood, The Cactus Blossoms, Free Peoples, The Westbound Rangers, Lucy Michelle & the Velvet Lapelles, Ages & Ages, Hot Bodies in Motion and Cave Singers.
For more information, visit www.sawtoothmusicfestival.com.
Christmas in July Open House
July is the time of year that fabric companies release their new Christmas fabrics, so the nonprofit 5 Bee Quilt Guild is holding a free open house with exhibits, crafts and refreshments today, July 25, from 5-8 p.m. at the Sun Valley Fabric Granary on Main Street in Hailey.
The guild is dedicated to the study and education of quilt and textile arts.