Category Archives: Gardens

Hijole it’s May Hodgepodge!

These were our rhoddy bushes at our last home in Kenmore, Washington.

Jo From This Side of the Pond has a new bouquet of questions for us to answer this first Hodgepodge of May. Click over to join in the fun. Thank you Jo!

1. What’s something you ‘may’ do this month? 

Gut our master shower and start work on the remodeling of it. That won’t be me alone but the royal we who do this. Mostly he’ll do it and I’ll be his gofer.

2. “All things seem possible in May”~Edwin Way Teale. Do you agree? Elaborate. If not May, then in which month if any would you say all things seem possible? 

I’m more of a get-er-done in October kind of person. For me the merry month of May yields more things to leisurely enjoy.

3. April showers bring May flowers…is this true where you live?

Absolutely true here. We are still in daffodil and tulip mode and soon many different plants will flower.

What’s your favorite color of the rainbow?

I will go with Violet.

Your favorite May bloom?

Rhododendron

Do you enjoy visiting gardens?

Yes! I’ve been fortunate to visit several beautiful gardens like Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, The gardens at Biltmore in Asheville, The Japanese Gardens in Seattle,  Roozengaarde Tulip Garden in Mt. Vernon Washington State, Descanso Gardens in Flintridge, California, Airlie Gardens in Wilmington N.C. , Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, Hidcote Gardens (Cotswolds), Kiftsgate Court Gardens (Cotswolds) to name a few…

What’s a ‘famous’ garden you’d like to visit? 

Beatrix Potter’s Garden at Hilltop

4. Are you a fan of the Star Wars series of films? If so how many have you seen? (I think there are 12) 

I enjoyed watching the first series in the theater, the first 4. We went to church with George Lucas’s sister when we lived in Huntington Beach. Didn’t really keep up with the last 7 or 8 of them.

Are you a fan of the sci-fi genre in general, in either books or movies? What’s your favorite sci-fi book or movie? 

More a fan of Fantasy. Hubby really enjoys Sci-fi. His favorite author is Isaac Asimov and the favorite series is The Foundation Trilogy.

5. Cinco de Mayo lands on Friday of this week…do you enjoy Mexican food? How often?

We grew up in what I call ‘Northern Mexico’ aka Southern California so we learned to enjoy Mexican food early. I can eat Mexican food several times a week but on average I’d say twice a week.

Do you eat out or make your own?

Both. This week we’ll be eating Mexican food out on Thursday and on Cinco de Mayo!

Your favorite thing to order in a Mexican restaurant?

Depending on the restaurant I enjoy Chile Colorado in a burrito or a chalupa. I also enjoy Enchiladas Suissa.

Have you ever been to Mexico? 

Yes and not to a resort. We went to Tecate to pick up floor tiles for our cousin’s house. Ticate is well East of Tijuana. We have tales to tell about that trip. After we got the tiles in the van the trip back to the Border near Tijuana was dicey. The heavy load necessitated more air in the tires and we called out to the Lord to find somewhere for that air! We made it back on the U.S. side and parked the van there. Then we crossed the Border again taking a taxi to Tijuana for some shopping. After we were done shopping we thought we could walk back to the Border, because we were so cheap. A Tijuana Police car pulled up and told us it was too far to walk to the ‘Border’ and we were escorted back to the U.S. Border by two Tijuana policemen in their police car… My cousin sat between the two policemen in the front seat and Me, Jeanie and Greg were in the back seat. We were a little nervous until we saw the Border crossing. Come over for dinner sometime and we’ll tell you the rest of the story…

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of gardens…

The gardens at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville N.C. in May of 2014 with our daughter Katie.

Butchart Gardens with our daughter, Katie.

Japanese Gardens in Seattle.

Descanso Gardens in 1988 and 2010, Katie and her cousins.

Roozengaarde in Mount Vernon, Washington State.

Hidcote Gardens in the Cotswolds 2014.

 

So thankful for all the beauty that God created for us to enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to visit Hodgepodgers soon.

Blenheim Palace Park and Gardens

On Thursday September 22nd after a early morning walk on the Blenheim Palace grounds and lunch we returned for a self-guided tour of the courtyards of the palace, the water terraces, the Churchill Memorial Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Grand Cascades.

The Churchill Memorial garden needs some freshening up. It was interesting to walk the path that had engravings in the stone to mark different important dates in his lifetime.

1900 Member of Parliament, 1902 Edward VII Crowned, 1905 Under Secretary, 1908 Marries Clementine, 1910 Home Secretary, 1911 George V crowned, 1914 WWI Starts, 1918 WWI Ends, 1924 Chancellor of Exchequer, 1933 Marlborough Published, 1937 George VI Crowned, 1939 WWII Starts – First Lord of Admiralty, 1940 Prime Minister, 1945 WWII Ends – Election Defeat, 1951 Prime Minister, 1953 Elizabeth II Crowned – Knighthood – Nobel Prize, 1955 Resigns as Prime Minister, 1963 Made US Citizen, 1964 Leaves Parliament, 1965 Buried at Bladon.

The Rose Garden which is usually in it’s prime in late June, early July. We were here in September so way past it’s prime.

This patch is filled with the Jubilee Rose.

The Grade 1 Listed Rose Garden is contained within a circular walk, surrounded by blue cat mint and arched over by slender hoops supporting climbing white roses. At its centre is a fountain within a circular pool and surrounded by symmetrical beds; each filled with a variety of different roses.

Here’s a photo I found to show what it looks like in it’s prime.

The Grand Cascades September of 2022.

The Grand Cascades in April of 2004 on a trip to England with our daughter.

The brown section on the bottom right of the map is the village of Woodstock. The rest of the map shows the grounds of Blenheim Palace, over 500 acres. We walked the upper circular path to the Grand Cascade and back to the palace and then back to Woodstock. We should have used a pedometer on this trip to log the steps we ended up with! The Feathers Hotel in Woodstock is where we stayed for two nights. The marked yellow path is where we walked early in the morning to see the Harry Potter Tree. That was a separate post.

Back to the Present: We had a new covering of snow over the weekend and more is predicted for later today into tomorrow. It’s always fun to see some distinct paw prints in the snow (feral cat). On Sunday our church body had a time to grieve together over the passing of our dear church secretary of many years with our pastor sharing some great stories about her and their working relationship before our service. Today we have to head out early for Dear to meet his new Primary Care Doctor. Hope you all have a good week.

Tiptoeing Hodgepodge

Tulips 029

Jo From This Side of the Pond is back this week a new set of Wednesday Hodgepodge questions!

1. What puts a spring in your step these days? 

Getting small and large tasks accomplished.

2. April 2nd was National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Did you celebrate? Do you like PB and J? If so how do you like yours? What’s your favorite kind of jelly?

No peanut butter celebrations here in the past week. Yum and yes to PB and J. Toast with peanut butter and honey is a favorite. When enjoying PB with jam give me raspberry or strawberry please.

3. What’s a memory you associate with spring flowers?

Tulips 011

The Skagit Valley Tulip festival in Washington State and visiting Roozengaarde farm and garden in Mt. Vernon, Washington.  Skagit is the county where you find the towns that grow tulips in abundance. We’ve enjoyed tulip farms and tulips in Mt. Vernon and La Conner.

4. Three things on your spring bucket list? Do you have a spring bucket list? If not pretend you do. 

  1. Drop some pounds.
  2. Travel over to the ‘coast’.
  3. Start mowing the lawn again.

5. One place you will travel this spring? (It might be Europe or it might be the grocery store)

Waiting on our passports which needed renewing so no out of country trips this Spring. We will for sure travel south to Spokane for shopping at the big box stores. Hopefully (see #4) we will get a trip to the other side of the Cascades on the books.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of the tulip festival…

You don’t have to go all the way to Amsterdam to enjoy tulips galore.

A Decade Ago…

Since I’m in that part of the month when our broadband isn’t strong enough to upload photos, I found these photos I took at the Seattle Japanese Garden in 2010. A decade ago when it was safe to travel all about the Seattle area. The area of Seattle on Capitol Hill that has been taken over by Antifa is a short distance from the Arboretum and the Japanese Gardens. I’m praying that there will be law and order again. In the meantime we wait and pray.

These quotes popped up in my Facebook Feed from years past…

Salvation is not a reward for the righteous but a gift to the guilty. -Steven Lawson (7 years ago)

Convicting thought from Jonathan Alexander during Sunday’s sermon...Am I educated in God’s Word beyond my obedience? Be a doer, not a poser! (6 years ago)

“You don’t have to be dead to move toward the light!”
I’ll add this verse to go with it…Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (3 years ago)

“You can get glad in the same shoes you get mad in.” (3 years ago)

And 1 year ago…
A little of this world will satisfy one who is strong in grace,
much will not satisfy one who is weak in grace,
nothing will satisfy one who is void of grace.
~Thomas Brooks

Have a great weekend everyone!

Looking Back in May…

A look back to days of easy traveling in May and some Gardens visited from my photo archives.

The Japanese Gardens in Seattle Washington in May of 2010.

In May of 2014 Katie and I toured the gardens at The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.

May 2016, Mother’s Day in our yard in Kenmore, Washington. Our huge Rhododendron Bushes. With our “Coast Kids”.

May of 2018 Tulip fields in Chilliwack, B.C., Canada.

May of 2019 archives but we actually visited this garden the end of April.  Manito Gardens in Spokane, Washington.

The primary reason I’m looking to my archives is that my photo uploads aren’t working yet again. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record.

 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah 40:8

I’ll leave you with good words that I’ve pondered recently:

I’ve been concentrating on Psalm 119 and Psalm 19 in my Old Testament Readings. In the New Testament I’m in Colossians. Here is a selection of verses from Psalm 119:

119:4 ~ You have commanded your precepts
    to be kept diligently.

119:11  ~ I have stored up your word in my heart,
    that I might not sin against you.

119:15  ~ I will meditate on your precepts
    and fix my eyes on your ways.

119:18 ~ Open my eyes, that I may behold
    wondrous things out of your law.

119:27 ~ Make me understand the way of your precepts,
    and I will meditate on your wondrous works.

119:34 ~ Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
    and observe it with my whole heart.

I’m adding a link to an article I read on Tim Challies blog that I want to be able to reference called; Is Your Church Christian or Christianish?

Mother’s day like other special days that have fallen within our social distancing time have and will be different. Plans are afoot for our family here for an outdoor gathering together on Mother’s Day since we have a nice day in the forecast.

Roozengaarde Tulip Farm

On the letter R and let’s go back to remember better days when we could schlep about the muddy tulip fields during the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The Tulip festival of 2020 had to be cancelled and the only way to see the Roozengaarde Garden is by a virtual tour.

Our very first visit to the tulip fields in Mount Vernon was a brief one in 1989.

This was in the late 90’s when my folks visited us in April and Katie was at least 10 years older. These photos were taken in the Roozengaarde Farm Garden.

We celebrated my mom’s birthday while they were here so we know they were here before and after April 8th.

The first time I met some of the Mennonite Girls Can Cook face to face was during the tulip festival in 2010.

That was the beginning of a incredible adventure.

In 2014 Katie and I visited the Roozengaarde again before she moved back to Jacksonville, North Carolina.

In 2015 as many of the Mennonite Girls who could, traveled down into the USA to meet me at Roozengaarde.

In 2018 we had a very muddy windy schlep through the fields with my sister, daughter and DIL.

We don’t live on the “Coast” anymore so a quick trip up to the tulip fields and to Roozengaarde Gardens is not easy anymore. I have lots of good memories and photos to remember.

 

Reflecting Back On May

British Columbia, Canada May 2018

The Seattle Japanese Garden 2017

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San Antonio River Walk 2016

Chewelah, Washington May 2015

Bellefontaine 142Bellefontaine Cemetery St. Louis, Missouri May 2014

British Columbia, Canada, May 2013

I’m still working through cleaning up my blog because of the Photobucket change of policy which resulted with them replacing 8 years of photos with ugly black and grey boxes asking for money to release my photos. I’ve made it to 2010 and have miles to go before I delete all those boxes. In the meantime I have these highlights from past posts in May. So much to be thankful for over the years.

We are in a warm weather pattern right now with just one wet day predicted this week. Right now a high of 75 degrees expected for Mother’s Day! We had a nice mostly quiet weekend here. The highlights of the weekend: time with Josh and Laura on our deck after the Sounder’s game, church on Sunday morning, and an afternoon meal on Sunday with friends in Kirkland. Hope you all had a good weekend.

Skagit Valley Barns

These photos were all taken on our way to Roozengaarde Garden on May 2nd to see the tulips.

I’m linking up to The Barn Collective with Tom the Backroads Traveler.

Dear pressure washed the deck and part of the drive and put up our patio covers on Friday. Now we are ready to bring the patio furniture down from the loft in the garage. That will happen once we have a dry spell again. We continue our quest to go through boxes of records to sort and shred. Our major Spring project is to let go of a lot of stuff! Our kids will reap the benefit of not having to do it for us! If you are a mother and are visiting here I hope you have a very grateful and peaceful Mother’s Day!

This is a side by side of our daughter-in-law when she was a baby and our granddaughter a couple weeks ago. Addy’s mommy will be celebrating her first Mother’s Day tomorrow. Happy Mother’s Day Jamie! You are a great mommy for little Addy!

Seattle Japanese Garden

This is my second post about our stroll through the Japanese Garden. If you click here you can see my previous post with some history about the garden.

Our lovely stretch of sunshiny days has come to an end and we have a wet forecast for the next several days. Because of the forecast we went out and did the yard work yesterday. I mow and Dear whacks the edges. When I mow I get 10,000 steps in before I know it. I took some photos of the yard in the Spring sunshine. Here’s one shot of our yard from yesterday. The apple blossoms and pear blossoms are gone and the trees are leafing up nicely. I’ll share more tomorrow.

Right as Rain

…and because of our rain things seem so right and restored in Spring.

The Seattle Japanese Garden has been open to the public since 1960. It is one of the finest Japanese-style gardens outside of Japan.

This 3.5 acre garden features a style developed in the late 16th to early 17th centuries, known as stroll gardens.

Following a winding path around a central pond, stroll gardens invite visitors to journey through varied landscapes of Japan. Along the journey, varied landscapes are hidden and then revealed.

Renowned landscape designer Juki Iida planned the Seattle Japanese Garden faithful to the principle of shinzensa, the essence of nature.

Because the sun was shining and we were promised a few hours of it we picked up our daughter who lives close to the University of Washington and the Japanese Gardens just south of the University for a little stroll about the gardens.

We enjoyed our stroll through the garden last Thursday, the 4th of May.

Some of the reflections reminded me of Monet.

After the gardens we stopped for lunch at Saint Helens Cafe and then had a second walk at Magnuson Park before we dropped Katie off. This week we’ve had two sunshine days in a row so far. We are basking in it.

I’m linking up to ABC Wednesday for R is for Rain, Right, Restored, Reflections, Revealed, Renowned. Speaking of renowned, thank you to Roger and the team and Mrs. Nesbitt for keeping this meme alive for many years now.

I’m also linking up to Tom’s Tuesday’s Treasures.

HT: http://www.seattlejapanesegarden.org