Tulip Mosaics

Tulips last a short time every year and I’m always keen to see them in the muddy or dry conditions on the tulip farms north of us in Skagit County. Dear and I traveled north on Tuesday morning May 2nd. The tulip festival usually runs the month of April but because of the weather and a late bloom this year they extended the festival into the first week of May.

One of our favorite stops is at Roozengaarde in Mount Vernon. They always have a beautiful display.

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is the largest festival in Northwest Washington State. Each year more than 1 million visitors come to experience over 300 acres of brightly colored tulips.

Who is behind the tulips? Roozengaarde was established in 1985 by the Roozen family and Washington Bulb Company, Inc. The Roozen family business of growing Tulips, Daffodils and Irises is the largest in the world, covering Skagit Valley with more than 1200 acres of field blooms and 15 acres of greenhouses. William Roozen emigrated from Holland in 1947 with years of experience in the bulb industry. He had a good back, strong hands, and a heart pulsing with dreams. Roozen started a bulb farm on five acres of land, holding meetings in a garage and toiling long hours beside a few hired hands. He saved money by buying used tractors and farm equipment.

The Roozen family’s hard work ethic spans at least six generations. The family first began raising tulips in Holland in the mid-1700’s. In the Skagit Valley, Roozen (which means “roses” in Dutch) worked for other farmers before setting off on his own in 1950. Five years later, he purchased the Washington Bulb Co., founded by two of the area’s first bulb farmers, Joe Berger and Cornelius Roozekrans. The Washington Bulb Co. now farms about 2,000 acres of land. In 1985, William Roozen handed the business down to his five sons and a daughter, Bernadette Roozen Miller, who passed away in 1996. William Roozen passed away on July 13, 2002 and, with 35 grandchildren, was confident the family company will keep growing.

We had another garden adventure in May that I will share this week. Our daughter Katie took this selfie of us on that adventure.

Woke up this Monday morning to sunshine! What a nice sight. This week is the last quiet week at this old house before we start traveling east, south and further east.

I’m linking up to Mosaic Monday with Maggie at Normandy Life.

Barns in Tulip World

When we travel to Skagit Valley to see the tulip fields we get the added bonus of seeing some barns along the way.

I spy myself taking this photo in our side view mirror!

The purpose of our trip to Skagit Valley was to visit the gardens at Roozengaarde and the bonus were the views along the country roads.

A horse beyond the tulips out of focus but the tulips were the focus of this trip.

I’ll leave you with this masterfully taken selfie of me and Dear. I have a lot of work to do on my selfies, yes?

Our Saturday is a mix of tweaking, painting, sorting, recycling, and trashing. I’ll have a few hours break at noon for soccer south of downtown Seattle. What’s on your agenda?

Linking up with Tom the Backroads Traveler for The Barn Collective.

Tulips in Borders

We were happy that we had a nice window of sunshine on May 2nd to enjoy this years tulip display even though it was in it’s very last days. The tulip festival usually runs the month of April. This year there was a late start to the blooms because of our winter weather so they extended the festival through the first week of May. So much beauty in living color.

We had a crazy weather day yesterday. The day started with beautiful sunshine and the temps climbed up to 78 and then just before 4pm the skies darkened and we had a thunderstorm event across our region with lots of lightning. One of the lightning strikes was right over our home and it was so loud! The rains came down in buckets and some trees and power lines came down, too. We have power but a good amount of folks lost power. The news called the event “the biggest severe weather day in decades”. Things are a lot milder today. Spring is unpredictable.

Our weekend looks to be quiet again which is a good thing because the end of the month will be busy with travel for both Dear and me. Got this sweet collage texted to us from our daughter-in-law with Miss Addy enjoying the sunshine on their porch. These photos were taken on May 4th.

Oh how we love this little girl. What a blessing she is from God to our whole family. Have a good Cinco de Mayo and first weekend in May everyone!

Zoom In to Tulips…

So many beautiful varieties of tulips and I’ve only shown you some of them. More coming soon.

Wednesday we managed to mow half the lawn and then finished up this morning. We had another sunny day today up until about 3:45 and now we are having a few thunderstorms roll through. Dear and I picked up Katie today and headed to the Seattle Japanese Gardens where Katie enjoyed a Japanese Tea Ceremony course for one of her college classes. She wore a tank top today! Our warmest day to date this year.

A Rare Sunny Morning…

My new header photo was taken at the Roozengaarde Gardens in Mt. Vernon in the state of Washington. When we heard we might have a few hours of sunshine on Tuesday, Dear and I zoomed up north about an hour from our home to see the very end of the tulip festival offerings. I’m first sharing the photos I took out in the few remaining fields of tulips.

The well planned garden and the borders of tulips in alphabetical order to help you know what you might want to order were still lovely to enjoy. I’ll be sharing photos from those areas next.

We had a warming up today which is much appreciated. We even were able to throw open a few windows to enjoy the fresh air.

First Hodgepodge of May

1. Can you tell I’m embracing a Cinco de Mayo theme here this week? Do you like Mexican food? What’s your favorite dish? How about on the side-black beans, pinto beans, refried beans, rice? What about heat-mild, medium, hot? Will you celebrate with Mexican food and drink on May 5th aka Cinco de Mayo?

We embrace Mexican food every week. Most Tuesdays you’ll find us at La Corona sitting at a table served by our favorite waitress, Liliana. When she sees us drive up she heads to the bar to make us our Cadillac Margaritas. We’ve become good friends sharing life experiences together with her. We enjoy medium hot. No plans so far for Cinco de Mayo as we already had our Tequila Tuesday this week. We enjoy Mexican food at home, too. Photo is from a couple years ago before I embraced a new hairdo and my grey. Growing up in Montebello, California in my elementary school days we would have special assemblies and dance the Mexican Hat Dance on Cinco de Mayo.

2. Ever been to Mexico? For work or holiday? Love it or no? If you haven’t been is this a place you’d like to visit? Can you speak Spanish?

Surprising that even though we grew up in Southern California Dear and I have only been to Mexico once to pick up Saltillo floor tiles (a type of terracotta tile) with my cousin and his wife who were building a home. It’s referred to as the perfectly imperfect tile. This was not a vacation in any stretch of the imagination. We are happy to have made it to Tecate and back alive to talk about it. Part of the story involves us getting a ride by the Tijuana police back to the border.

3. What’s one thing you may accomplish this month?

I know that this month I’ll be getting a large part of my quota in of visiting family. We will head east to visit Addy and her folks again and then I will fly south to see my dear old pop for his 94th birthday and see as many siblings and nieces and nephews that I can fit in and who have the time to visit with me.

4. If you were mayor of your village, city, or town, what’s one thing you’d like to see changed, done away with, revamped, or accomplished? Is serving in public office something you’ve ever seriously considered?

If I was mayor of my village I’d space out city projects so that every major street in town wasn’t torn up at the same time. No interest whatsoever in serving in public office, thank you.

5. What’s something that may be popular, but that you just don’t get?

Green “healthy” smoothies.

6. Can’t let this week slip by without mentioning Thursday May 4th is Star Wars Day. As in ‘May the 4th be with you’ ahem. Are you a fan of the Star Wars series? Exactly how much of a fan are you? On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being ‘I’ve seen every film, own the action figures, might have dressed as Darth Vader for Halloween one year’, and 1 being, ‘what’s a Vader?’ -where do you land?

Well we embraced the series back in the day. Our middle son always had little figurines of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in his pocket. I still have those in one of my china cabinets to give back to him. On the scale, I’ll say 3. And…just to name drop, we were in a small group with George Lucas’ sister in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

7. Scroll back through your blog posts and in three sentences or less tell us the general theme of your fourth blog post. Does it still ring true today? Is it a topic you re-visit on your blog from time to time?

My blog is about all the things I enjoy and wonder about. What I see in the world around me and who I see it with. It’s always been heavy with photos because I’m visual. My fourth post dated March 5, 2007 was a devotional about Trusting and Obeying. Yes, it still rings true and I post devotionals occasionally and Sunday Hymns every week. Jesus will always be a part of my blog since He has saved me and leads me on in my life.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Today Dear and I enjoyed some time at Roozengaarde Gardens in Mt. Vernon enjoying the end of Tulip season there. My photo at the top of the post and this one above was taken at the gardens. I’ll be publishing a few posts of all the beautiful tulips we enjoyed soon.

Linking up with Joyce at From This Side of the Pond for Wednesday Hodgepodge.

Trumpets of Jesus…

“Trumpets of Jesus, heralding spring” is how my mom refers to her favorite flower…

This was a comment from one of my Facebook friends on a post showing some daffodils that popped up in my yard. I’m going to embrace that description of daffodils from this old friend of my youth. She, Vera Kushnerov, and her husband Paul worked with the youth in our Russian Baptist Church. Their son Paul shared this story about his mom. Thank you Paul.

When I was in elementary school Vera asked me to write letters to her fiance Paul who was serving in the military. I embraced the idea and was so excited when a letter came to me in the mail from Paul. This experience sparked the habit of writing letters and sending cards to people in my life. I even enjoyed a pen pal for a time. In high school/college the youth pastor and his wife set up a sunshine committee to send notes and birthday cards to others in our group and gave the job to me. I’m sad to say that after the whole internet, email, facebook, instagram forms of communication have overtaken the world my habit of sending a hard copy greeting has gone by the wayside.

Vera is the lovely lady on the left, my dear cousin Valia is on the right and that’s my sister Lana the flower girl. This was the wedding of one of the Menn girls, Manya maybe? Vera is my Aunt Nina’s youngest sister. Vera is my cousin Valia’s aunt and Manya’s aunt, too. Are you all following me? This Russian community stayed real close starting in Iran and continuing in the Los Angeles area.

Last Tuesday Katie and I went to Bonhoeffer Gardens hoping the daffodils would be showing off their color.

Only about half of the daffodils were showing off.

The photo at the top of this post was from the daffodil fields in Mt. Vernon last March when my sisters were visiting. Flowers are a bit behind this year.

Awake and hail with heart and voice
The message of these hours!
With all the wakening earth rejoice;
Be glad with birds and flowers.
Behold the joyous Easter day
That brings the news to earth
Of Easter morning far away,
When life from death had birth.

After Katie and I walked about Bonhoeffer Botanical Gardens we headed back to Seattle and to the University of Washington to walk along the Quad to enjoy the Cherry blossoms. That post is coming soon.

Do you have plans for Easter? What is your favorite flower?

Bonhoeffer Botanical Gardens

A couple weeks ago Dear and I headed north to the Bonhoeffer Botanical Gardens on the grounds of Freeborn Lutheran Church.

Found on 20+ acres located on Exit 215 off the I-5 freeway, 45 minutes north of Seattle. The Gardens contain all of Western Washington’s indigenous trees, shrubs, vines and ferns along with most grass, moss, mushroom, pond, flower and ground cover species.

We had a one hour walk without getting rained on which is a treat these days.

On Thursday I hope to go back with our daughter and see the daffodils that should finally be blooming.

I also want to go back in late Spring to see all the other plants that will be blooming.

Speaking of Bonhoeffer this is a great book about his life…

Taken from the jacket of the book: “Bonhoeffer gives witness to one man’s extraordinary faith and to the tortured fate of the nation he sought to deliver from the curse of Naziism. It brings the reader face to face with a man determined to do the will of God radically, courageously, and joyfully – even to the point of death. Bonhoeffer is the story of a life framed by a passion for truth and a commitment to justice on behalf of those who face implacable evil.”

And here are some quotes from Bonhoeffer:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

” Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us alone with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible…”

“The church has only one altar, the altar of the Almighty…before which all creatures must kneel. Whoever seeks something other than this must keep away, he cannot join us in the house of God…the church has only one pulpit, and from that pulpit, faith in God will be preached, and no other faith, and no other will than the will of God, however well-intentioned”

These quotes of course are more powerful to read in context and with consideration of the time period that Bonhoeffer lived in Germany. Bonhoeffer is eventually executed just weeks before the end of WWII.

We in the Pacific Northwest are longing for the sunshine and a string of days without rain. Our February and March have had historical rainfall and will go into the books. Our vitamin D3 is depleted for sure. As I type I see a little brightness outside and it makes me smile. I read an interesting article on grumbling a couple weeks ago and I don’t want to go there. I’m just stating the facts of our weather pattern right now. The weather forecasters say that we will have sunshine about noon tomorrow and that’s a good time to shoot for arriving at Bonhoeffer gardens. After Bonhoeffer since our daughter lives very close to the University of Washington campus we are going to stop there before I drop her off at home to see the Cherry blossoms on the quad. If for any chance the forecast is wrong we’ll just try on another day.

A Garden Party!

Looks like there are several link ups for this party. Hope I didn’t miss anyone!

Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson

At Home With Jemma

Poofing the Pillows

Decor to Adore

White Spray Paint

This has been a banner Spring in the Seattle area with many things blooming early because of the weather this year. Here are a series of lovelies from our yard. Calling it a garden is a bit of a stretch.

Pink Dogwood is one of my very favorites. We planted this tree just a few years ago.

Our lilac bush was planted the same time as the Dogwood. This is the first year it is full of blooms. Last year we only had 3 blooms!

I love these sweet Violas.

Our Camellia was at it’s fullest a week ago. It is waning now but the azalea bush you see next to it is now in it’s glory in the photo below.

Next to this vibrant azalea is our Rosebud Azalea that will bloom next.

This next photo shows what the sweet little rosebud azaleas look like when they open up. As of this morning this is the first one to open.

We have a few established rhododendrons in our yard. This yellow rhoddy is the youngest and we had some beautiful blooms this year.

These last photos are of our very old and established Rhododendrons that were here when we purchased this old house. The Rhododendron is the Washington State Flower. These next photos were taken this morning in the rain.

One lighter pink and the other one deeper. The third bush always blooms later than these two.

Our patio covers are not up yet so on the next couple of photos you can see the frames without the covers. We usually put the covers up on Mother’s Day weekend.

Here you see a little view of our deck patio and the Dogwood, little yellow rhoddy, and the side of our barbecue.

This is a view of the french doors from our family room that are the most used doors at this old house. You step out on the deck from them and this path takes you to our detached garage/shop. I’ll leave you with some shots that show our deck with the covers up. This one shows the deck looking out from our family room.

Another view with our new privacy fence. Whew…you made it through. Wish I could have strolled through with you and a cup of coffee!

We just got home from a trip across the mountains to visit our son and his new bride of 10 months. It’s a 5-1/2 hour drive to get to their home. Now we are rushing about getting things ready for a trip to San Antonio, Texas for Dear to work at a conference there. I will be on my own and will explore this city that I’ve never been to and also drive to Austin to meet up with my brother and his family who will drive down from Dallas. Woohoo. Better get the laundry going. Hope you all have a good week!

Garden Fences…

Who doesn’t love a white picket garden fence? I’m joining TexWisGirl at Run*A*Round Ranch Report for Good Fences #71. This is my new header photo for now and I learned from my good ole Bloggy friends that this plant is Bee Balm. When Dear and I took an overnight road-trip in the middle of July to the North Olympic Peninsula in Washington State we stopped at a couple lavender farms. In a few days I’ll post my lavender shots but for today I’m sharing this sweet garden on the edge of the lavender fields at Purple Haze Lavender Farm. Our July has been very full and interesting to say the least. We had extended family stay with us after attending our son’s wedding at the end of June till July 8th. We are still in semi-retirement mode as Dear waits to hear about where his next job might be. During this mode we have said a few times that everyday is Saturday. We aren’t experts at this retirement preview. We took our little road-trip so we could get out of the “everyday is a project day” at this old house. Now at the end of July our youngest and her hubby have moved into our basement as their monthly apartment rent went up over $400. Yikes. Now we are trying to blend all our stuff, including furniture. We are very happy and thankful we can offer them this space. If Dear and I get re-located with a new job they will stay on and take care of our property. It’s a win-win situation for all of us. In the meantime we have lots of eggs, milk, spices, oatmeal and bookcases! You get the picture! How’s your July winding down?