Not of My Choosing

We went on a short camping trip recently. We have a new-to-us pickup truck, and my husband got a camper top with a pop-up top. I haven't been camping in years - it became too much work for me, and then for quite a few years we didn't have a very reliable vehicle to take. Anyway, my husband wanted to get out in the woods, so we went to Wanapum State Park on the Columbia River. It's just a couple of hours from Seattle on I-90, dry and warm. Not many trees, though, or what I would call woods! We had a good time - the weather was great, the view of the river was lovely, the campsite was quiet. Most of the other campers had RV's or big trailers, and they mostly stayed inside. Almost all of them had little dogs, too. It's quite windy there, especially in the evening. The leaves on the cottonwood trees rustle and rattle almost all the time. While I was sitting under them in the afternoon, they almost sounded like raindrops. I kept looking around and at the clouds to see if I was going to get caught in a sudden downpour.


The colors of the river and the hills beyond were so beautiful, and change according to the light, cloud cover, time of day. I tried to capture some of that. I love the shades of blue and green alongside the brown.


I took some knitting with me. One of my good friends from the Achenblog had given me sock yarn when she visited, and she knits while camping, so I thought that would be appropriate to take. I got the heel flap and heel and gusset done one afternoon. Luckily it wasn't too windy or it would have been much harder. Toward the end, a gust of wind nearly took the ball of yarn away. I really love the colors in this yarn, and best of all, the socks fit!


I recently knit another pair of socks with yarn that someone on Ravelry had sent with a market bag swap. I didn't think I was going to like the colors so well - it was not something I would have picked myself - but I loved how the colors flowed. They reminded me of a Monet painting, soft, muted golds and greens and blues. They were a pleasure to make - even on size 0 needles - and they fit too!


So, I seem to be going through a time of things not of my choosing, but which turn out well.

May Flowers

Spring so far has been very cold and rainy, but we have had a few sunny, dry stretches. Flowers have been a bit a late, but I'm so pleased to have some long-spurred columbine in bloom. I have a lot of columbine that started with seeds from my Aunt Helen - mostly purple, some pinks, which have self-seeded all over the yard. I have tried to get the long-spurred McKana's Giants going, but with no success till now. I suppose I should have bought plants, but they always seemed so expensive. Somehow the seeds have been difficult for me. These are from seeds I started last spring, and I could not be more pleased:


I love the light shade of yellow, and the spurs definitely are long!

These are some interesting pink columbine:


The Therese Bugnet rugosa rose:


Most everything is doing well. The ferns have all come back, the New Zealand flax which took a beating over the winter is getting new growth. The mock orange, which my husband cut back severely and moved to a sunnier spot, even has a few flower buds (it has never flowered much at all).

Skagit Valley Tulips

Despite having lived here for over 20 years, I've travelled north to see the tulips in bloom only a few times. The first time was many years ago on a Sunday, possibly Easter Sunday, when the crowds were awful, and my small son had an ear ache. In subsequent years, work and weather combined to make the trip planning difficult. But I took a visiting friend a few years ago, and this year I have plenty of time, so last Monday, north we went. This spring has been cold, so we waited a couple of weeks in the hopes that the tulips would be "showing color", as the growers say. The day was gorgeous, sunny, dry, warm, windless.

The first field we came across was this - daffodils as far as the eye could see:



And here are tulips - there were also pink ones in a field farther back.



We went to the Roozengaarde display gardens. Most of the tulips there were out, and they were spectacular.




Traffic wasn't bad, although there were plenty of people in the gardens, and stopping to take pictures of the fields. All in all, a great way to spend a beautiful day.

The mountain was out:


And the tulips in my backyard are putting on a show, too:

Snow!

Snow! Snow in Seattle, especially around Christmas, is quite unusual. We do not like it, especially when it persists for over a week(!). Luckily, for me it's been inconvenient, not crippling - but if things don't get back to normal soon, I will go crazy.

I took some pictures - it is picturesque today, Christmas Eve, with snow coming down. It's coming down in the form of snowflakes, which are fabulous, and in the form of big clumps as old snow melts and falls off power lines and rooftops. It's 33 degrees at the moment, which has me hoping it will become rain at some point.

Red twig dogwood.



You can see a bit of the bright fuschia colored (formerly purple) house next to mine. In this dim light, it's not too bad. When the sun is out, it really pops.



Balsam fir in the backyard. Lovely.


Somewhere underneath all that there is a car.

And to prove that it's not just me whining about snow, it's the whole city of Seattle:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/393514_storm25.html
The headline in the dead tree version is "Desperate for drizzle".

March/April/May Showers Bring Lots of Flowers

The temperatures have finally warmed up to tolerable here, we've had some sunny, dry days, and the plants seem to have loved all the cold, rainy, even snowy days we had. Irises of all kinds are blooming - many that I have not seen bloom in years or forgot that I had. I have a few pictures (my camera has been devouring batteries).

German Bearded Iris - mauve and white - really lovely this year - sometimes the colors are too muddy for me:



Siberian Iris - Summer Sky - light sky blue/white/yellow - these are in a bed that has been around for 10 years or more, overcrowded, grass-infested - putting on quite a show, along with the dark purple, larger-flowered Caesar's Brother, which I thought had died out.


Not a very good picture of my favorite purple species iris - reminds me of the iris that grows wild in Virginia, and certainly runs wild in my yard. It winds up everywhere. Also in the picture are blue columbine - descendants of purple columbine from my Aunt Helen.


Autumn fern, with Tassel fern behind it. Not a very good picture - it's a gorgeous coppery pink, leaves unfurling. The Tassel fern is dark, glossy green.

Spring is on its way, right?

We've had snow(!) the last couple of days, despite the temperature being above freezing - about 36 degrees. The plants don't seem to mind, although the seeds that we planted in the ground are taking their time. Below is the clematis armandii in the back corner, which has taken off and is doing what I envisioned. I like that I can see it from the deck. The yellow thing hanging from the rose bush is a praying mantis egg case in protective netting. The other clematises are getting new growth, as are the roses.




My latest pair of socks. They fit pretty well, but could stand to be a tad smaller and snugger. And I need to do something about the toe - I have a wide toe, so probably decreasing more gradually and having more stitches at the end would work better.

Happy Valentine's Day

My husband surprised me with 2 dozen beautiful red and white roses for Valentine's Day. He's usually good with giving me something, but this is the first time for roses, I think. I would typically say that I'm not that crazy about roses, but these are gorgeous. He put them on my computer desk where I work from home, knowing that it's the first place I stumble to in the morning (I have a wretched 7:15 ayem meeting daily). What a great surprise! Work has been very stressful - looking at beautiful roses really helps.

Lovely, sunny day today. I noticed some crocuses out the other day, and the snowdrops and clematis are coming out, roses putting out new growth. I love this time of year, and while it is still cold and spring isn't here yet, it's my favorite, hopeful time of year.