Tag Archives: Tulips

Tulips!

The Skagit Tulip Festival

“The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is one of the destination events for the Pacific Northwest, held each year from April 1-30. Every spring hundreds of thousands of people come to enjoy the celebration of spring as millions of tulips burst into bloom. As with all things governed by Mother Nature, the tulips bloom according to their own schedule sometime during the festival. The tulips allow us to share our corner of the world and help us to showcase Skagit Valley agriculture.

Mary Brown Stewart started growing tulips in 1906 with bulbs from Holland, but tulips were “only a small part of the crop and the whole operation was of modest size” (Barrett). In 1926 her son Sam Stewart started the Tulip Grange Bulb Farm near LaConner. Marinus Lefeber, a friend of Sam Stewart, moved their Whatcom County operation down to a farm along Memorial Highway near Mount Vernon. The farm was in business until 2002. Other bulb growers joined them after 1945. By 1997, 700 acres were used for bulb farming, with a value of $42 million.”

I never get tired of visiting the tulip fields. Besides the fields there are gardens to visit, too.

Saturday Smiles…

This sign is on the stairwell at my hairdressers salon/home. It made me smile and I hope you smile, too.

Before the tulips bloom fully here in Washington the daffodils make us smile.

Sometimes a different color tulip gets in the mix and the daffodils try to share the glory with the tulips…

Hope your weekend is off to a good start. If the weather cooperates I’ll be mowing the lawn and Dear will be doing some painting. What are your plans?

FFF ~ Fresno, Food, Fields

I was in Fresno last Friday with 3 of the Mennonite Girls so I didn’t participate in Friday’s Fave Five but I’m joining with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story this week with my favorites.

1. Traveling to my first MCC Relief Sale and spending time with generous people who donate their time, services, and goods for others.

2. When Dear picked me up at the airport on Sunday morning we decided to head up north for lunch in La Conner at a favorite restaurant of ours called Nell Thorn. The food was delicious and the drive gave us the opportunity to get caught up with news about each of our days apart.

3. After lunch we headed to the tulip fields and enjoyed a tiptoe through the tulips walk about the tulip fields. We don’t take for granted this amazing opportunity to visit these fields of wonder just an hour up the road. I’ll be sharing lots of tulip photos this next week.

4. We are getting a new roof  and rain gutters installed this week. It’s good to know we’ll be set for many years when the job is done.

5. To get away from the pounding noise I went out on a shopping adventure to find green and lavender dishes and accessories. It was a successful trip. I found plates and napkins at Goodwill and more plates and small cups at Crate and Barrel. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent time on a shopping trip like this. Having a chicken in the crock pot made the adventure quite relaxing since I didn’t have to be home early to make dinner.

I’ll leave you with another tulip photo. I hope to get around soon and see what y’all have been up to.

Tulip Festival in the Skagit Valley

Tulips

By A.E. Stallings

The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,
~
Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Parading finishes like starts,
~
Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.
~
The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
The tulips make me want to see—
The tulips make the other me
(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,
~
The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.
~
On this past Sunday after Dear picked me up from the airport we headed straight to the Skagit Valley for lunch and a quick trip to some tulip fields. We are really blessed here in Washington to enjoy amazing flower festivals including tulips, lilacs, lavender, daffodils, and of course our state flower the rhododendron. I will be sharing lots of tulip photos but decided to start with a poem and a few shots since this is poetry month, too. Blessings…
~
Here are the photos of our lunch before we headed to the fields. We ate at Nell Thorn in La Conner. A restaurant we highly recommend. Dear had a lamb burger that was amazing and I had a quiche that was more like a souffle. I also had to taste their soup of the day which was a spicy bean garnished with cilantro. Yummy!
~

I Sing the Mighty Power of God ~ Hymn

I Sing the Mighty Power of God

I sing the mighty power of God, that made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at God’s command, and all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord, who filled the earth with food,
Who formed the creatures through the Word, and then pronounced them good.
Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed, where’er I turn my eye,
If I survey the ground I tread, or gaze upon the sky.

There’s not a plant or flower below, but makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God art present there.

words: Isaac Watts

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Outside & In…

It’s that time of the week again to travel to snowy Springy Alberta to visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and join in with your favorites from this past week.

Here’s Dear surveying his new wall… It should be finished today with a few more levels of block…

Here’s what added to my joy this week…

1. Getting the dreaded boxes from the attic project done. Whoohoo it feels great!

2. Having work done on our yard. Grading and a retaining wall. Work should be done today.

3. Enjoying pretty fancy tulips that only cost me $2.50.

4. Bringing some of the Apple Blossoms inside to enjoy.

5. Having a good meal fresh off the stove.

Psalm 63: 3-5

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

Have a great day and weekend everyone!

Friday’s Fave Five! ~ Easter Edition…

Time to sit down, take a deep breath, and consider the blessings of this past week. Now visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in or to see some favorites. Thank you Susanne for hosting this great exercise…

 

Easter, Easter, Easter! I love Easter. I love that our Faith is defined by what Jesus did on the cross on our behalf. The whole Lenten Season culminating on Resurrection Sunday and now the days leading up to Pentecost are great days to focus and be refreshed. So here are my 5 favorites from this past week…

1. Getting together with my sister Lana G! and keeping our Russian Heritage traditions going by baking the Russian Easter bread and making and molding the traditional sweet cheese spread. I have to get more cans to bake the bread in by next year. Someone at our Easter table let it slip that she might have some in her garage. Along with these traditions watching my daughter color the Easter eggs is always a fun time.

2. The night before Easter I went to the opening Sounders Soccer game. I went to a nearby park and ride that was offering special buses to take fans to Qwest field. My bus ended up being real special as I was the only one on it!! The bus driver and me. I thought of you Thom! This was one of those really big metro buses, too. I had to chuckle. Too bad our team lost…ugh. On the bus trip home there were more people but the bus driver recognized me right away…

3. Easter was such a nice day of celebration for us. We went to a baptism of 2 little sisters we know. So sweet. We came home to get ready to host our Easter meal with my DIL’s family. There were 12 of us and we had a good time eating, sharing and laughing.

4. Whoohoo! I finally got to meet some of the Mennonite Girls from MGCC face to face on Tuesday. Five of the Canadian Mennonites had a field-trip down to the Skagit Valley to see the tulips and we all met up for lunch in La Conner. It was like we were old friends. Each gal is so unique yet so cohesive in the group. I don’t know if that’s the right word but I hope you understand what I mean…

5. Tulips, tulips, tulips! I love tulips. To see these lovelies like the sea before your eyes is absolutely amazing. I praise God for creating tulips and I’m so glad those immigrants from Holland settled in the Skagit Valley and grow them for our pleasure and for their livelihood!

Keep scrolling down to the next post if you’d like to see some tulips in the fields…

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

I’m Not Tired…

…of tulips, are you?

I do believe the pink ones are my favorite. Which are your favorite?

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tulips!

 

Row upon row yellow, pink, red, purple.

 

I took a quick trip North last Thursday because we were promised a window of time without rain. I wanted to see the tulips before all the crowds started coming.

 

It was dry for my hour drive up until I took the exit for Mt. Vernon to head to the tulip farms. Then it started pouring!!

 

Most of my photos had to be taken out of my car window.

 

I was amazed at the beauty of this lovelies blooming row upon row.

 

 

 

 

 

It was wonderful to get the effect of a sea of tulips when you didn’t focus down the planted rows.

 

 

 

It really is a treat to see and if you ever are in the Northwest in April make sure you make it to the Skagit Valley!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.