Traffic

What do you do in traffic?

We talked and laughed about the day and how wonderful everything was and then we hit traffic. But our day had been so good and traffic was, after all, inevitable, we decided, one by one, quietly to ourselves, to keep the wonderful day going. So we....

Took pictures of bizarre little cars, don't you wonder where the big fat dimpled hand is that makes this car go?

Tried to take a shot of the freeway pavement, I don't think I've ever seen freeway pavement up close and slow like this. Sorry it is so blurry. I wonder where they got all of that incredibly flat rock.

And of course we took photos of the traffic we were stuck in. And yes, people were staring. Not sure if they were staring because we were taking photos, or because we were driving a F350 with dulies in downtown rush hour traffic.

We also took some artsy martsy, com'on everyone says it the other way, I gotta be different, any way, some photos with interesting compositions.

And pictures with almost as much grey as possible. Flag ruins or sets off the monochromeness.

A picture of a place we've been, signs for other places we've been, books of the Bible that are our favorite and a favorite word, union.

More composition tries.

I do like my baseball best on the radio. With a bottle of coke and some gardening to do.

I've been to one baseball game here. It was great fun, Eric and Steph took Dirt and I. The stadiums border the more industrial area of downtown. A favorite place of mine.

I didn't use to be a baseball fan, I always thought the game a bit slow, it would cause me to wander off and do other things. But because of Dirt, the radio in my bedroom was always on and it was most often on the channel that hosted baseball for Seattle.

I would catch bits and pieces of the talk shows the channel did and often baseball would come on instead.

It changed things for me, my perspective, I'm always up for change.

Dave Niehaus announced most of the games I accidentally listened to as I cleaned the house or put away laundry. I began to like just the sound of it, the melody of the game, and before I knew it I was beginning to remember names and know who Dirt was speaking of.

The girls and I would have our own names for players, some were endearing names and some were, I admit, rather contemptuous of certain whiny behaviors.

But now the radio station that is on isn't the one that broadcasts the game, so...

One of these days I'll be a better fan.

But for now I have a greenhouse to help finish up and fill.

It's A Long Way to Tip...

No I didn't go to Tipperary yesterday, but I sure went a long way! Seventy-seven point four miles north to be exact, to get Anna started in her new venture, angora bunnies.

I was going to be clever and post the google map of our route up there but every time I try to put it here on my blog, internet explorer turns off. Hmmmmm. Google maps says I, common computer user, can do this, but apparently I, Lanny Person Vick, cannot. This is weird since both, blogger and maps, are Google "products". Oh well.

And the only pictures that Anna took were of bunnys and bunny fur, and I know she will post these tonight, before the phone begins its usual evening ring.

She would have my hide if I "stole" them and posted them first. So you are going to be visually impaired today Dear Reader, well only here actually.

Back to the drive. We went up nearly to Snohomish, I think we were just a couple miles to the south of it, in this gorgeous farming valley (our local valley, what I always call The Big Valley, use to be a farming valley but now it is an industry, warehouse and cheaply built housing valley). We left around noon and arrived around two, having made a couple of quicky stops on the way up there, a quick bite to eat and money.

The bunny lady was really nice, an artist. Anna picked out her bunny based on temperament and color. We chatted with Bunny Lady, saw her other baby bunnies (not old enough to leave momma), tossed the ball for Bunny Lady's Border Collie and then said good bye.

Oh wait. I told her I was headed to Covington, and did she know the back way there by any chance? I was not looking forward to rush hour (it was straight up three by that time) down Hwy 405. Hwy 405 is not one of my favorite roads, I do not like being a marble in a concrete marble works, especially when I am a soft squishy marble and all the other marbles are bigger and meaner and tougher than me.

So she gave directions to Duvall, and beyond, but I was sure that I could figure it out from Duvall, with a little help from a link up via Bet to Google maps. Sure enough the road through Duvall and Fall City and up to Snoqualmie junctioned with Snoqualmie Parkway. Snoqualmie Parkway turns into Hwy 18 and Hwy 18 takes you right to Covington and our fuchsia start supplier.

The drive from Bunny Lady's to Duvall was splendid! We hugged the west side of this beautiful farming valley, Snoqualmie Valley. Then we crossed the Valley and entered Duvall. One of these days when I have time to just meander around the girls and I are going to go back up here. We picked up Hwy 203 in Duvall where it is Duvall's main street and then heading south turns into Carnation-Duvall Road.

I was on familiar ground. Hwy 203 was the majority of the route we, Dirt, Mike, Rebecca and I, took up to Burlington on the motorsickles August '09 to visit the wonderful Coulters. A trip where God once again turned our lives upside-down, inside-out and all-about, but that is a story for another day, suffice it to say, this road is nearly permanently embedded in the ol' noggin', only a severe case of dementia will remove it.

From another day with the Coulters I knew that I could take a different road out of Fall City and head up to Snoqualmie and North Bend. And every one knows that from North Bend I could hook up with Hwy 18 and drop down into Covington. But I was sorta hoping that I didn't have to go all the way into North Bend.

Enter Bettikins. With a call to EBet and her looking at Google Maps at home, we figured out that in Snoqualmie I could take the Parkway and it would magically turn into Hwy 18!

Yah Hooosie!

On Monday, Rebecca and I drove up to Covington to Earthworks Fuchsias to check out, and purchase if decent, what seventy-five cent fuchsia starts look like. Well they look just like the two-ninety-nine ones at fancy-pants Watson's and the selection was far larger!

When I got home Monday with my own personal fuchsia collection, Dirt and I figured that at that price I could put some baskets together, grow them out a bit and sell them for an honorable profit for my trouble. And that it would give my cusotmers somethin' pretty to take home with their nutritious bounty. We even figured in the price of the fancy soil sold at Costco and the hanging pots from McConkey's all of which are on the way home too. So I was ordered, ordered mind you, to include another trip to the Fuchsia Lady when I went to get Anna's bunny.

Since Covington is a shoptropolis, on Monday Rebecca and I went ahead and shopped at the Costco right there on our way out of Covington, a half a block off of the main drag we past down. And heck, looky what is in the giant never ending parking lot that connects half of Shoptropolis, Carl's Jr. and some mighty tasty burgers.

So Anna and I did virtually the same thing, got to Covington, went out a mile or so to the Fuchsia Lady and her wonderful employee Dawn for eighteen baskets worth of fuchsia starts (I had even packed my sales tax waiver in my bag, check it out, I'm sorta getting organized and a tad bit grown-up).

We headed back into Covington proper where the Hwy entrance is. We zipped into a pet supply, saw a neighbor in the parking lot, stopped to say hi, in the pet supply store we figured out we could do better at Freddy O'Meyer for bunny supplies, zipped across the road and into megaparking lot, ran into Freddy's for bunny supplies (and ice cream), came out, repositioned the car closer to Costco, went in, bought soil, chatted with the same Costco employees that Rebecca and I chatted with on Monday, (weird, I'm feeling like a "regular" at Covington Costco) went out, loaded our purchases into the Exploder, chatted with the young men loading their purchases into a Mini Cooper, asked them how they go shopping to Costco in a Mini Cooper and wasn't the car rather antithetical to the whole Costco experience, hopped back in the car, went to the middle of megalot and pulled into a parking spot at Carl's Jr, got our very big juicy yummy burger dinner for everyone back home, (felt like a regular here too) asked for it to be double bagged for warmth, it wasn't, headed out to the car, double bagged the food with our own reusable shopping bags, jumped into the car, looked at the bunny and drove straight home.

All in all, a ninety-six mile trip back home from Bunny Lady's to avoid the freeway-marble-works and swing over to pick up fuchsia starts, soil and a few other grocery items from Costco and into Carl's Jr. Burgers for take-home dinner. Well worth eighteen extra miles.

And actually when I Googled the trip straight down from Bunny Lady's to Covington to home via the freeway, it is eighty-nine point two miles. So really, my beautiful scenic route only was six point eight miles out of the way. Albeit not on freeway fast track but I'm thinking considering rush hour, I was just as fast, and way happier!

Hope you were able to hang in there Dear Reader for that wild scenic ride. Sorry I didn't have photos but I will return to the scene of the drive soon, with more time and a camera on my hands than I did yesterday. Right now I've got to run down to McConkey's right quick and get pots for the fuchsias. Beem me over Scotty!

Spring Has Nearly Ended

The end of spring is upon us and today Summer Camp at Vicktory Farm and Gardens begins with Flag Day.

But Today's_Flower selection is the Blue Flag's cousin, Iris Germanica, Bearded Iris.

Iris Germanica is one of my all time favorite flowers. And particularly the incredibly fragrant common purple ones.

I cannot imagine living in a place where irises don't grow. Like the seasonal treat of asparagus, the year would not be complete without iris. Every spring I crave its fascinating appearance and it's memory propelling fragrance and when it's season comes to a close and the last one is just a funny mooky browned mass on the stem, my heart sinks a bit, lifted only because I know he and I will meet back here again next year.

Driveway view of the North Garden and the two beds of iris.

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From this view of the North Garden I am reminded that I've been here quite a while and my oldest daughter has been married quite a while. For all these lovely mustard colored (or diaper colored if you want to know my true feelings) are from the house she lived in when she was first married, I believe she inherited them from Rebecca who in turn got them from Grandma Grace.

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The have certainly multiplied and much quicker than my preferred old purple ones or purchased white ones, which are not by the way who they were purported to be. And while the color of this "gold" one is not exactly one of my favorites it most certainly has a perfume that I have come to look forward to, vanilla honey with a hint of citrus.

A place for old friends to set a spell within sniffing range.

Fortunately a couple of friends have stopped by to pull my head out of the weeds and soil and caused me to rest a moment as we talked of our favorite irises and other fragrant delights in the garden. Prior to them stopping by I was just enjoying the fragrance as I unhooked and went through the pasture gate to the pumpkin patch or while I was here weeding the North Garden.

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One friend came by when I was at the other end of my gardens and by the time I got down to where she was she was stepping into her vehicle with her arms loaded with my gold irises, waving to me and telling me she just came for my flowers that day. I am glad she knows she can come and get whatever she needs that I have, because it is not really mine anyway but His.

Gold standards and falls, with yellow beards and bronze veins,

it has a strong fragrance that perfumes the air with vanilla honey and citrus.

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When a friend comes back a few days after sitting in your iris garden while talking over childhood memories, heartbreaks, endearing times and prayers for the day and the future, and takes an arm load of your least favorite colored iris, it makes you stop and take a second look.

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Perhaps I do have a good thing here. Perhaps I should change my perspective on the good gifts God sees fit to give me even though I have a disgruntled attitude. Perhaps it is time to have a new attitude.

"Stephie and Kai's Gold" is what I've dubbed this one.

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They came to me through her, appropriate then, it should be named for her, and because, she can always see the upside and the "gold" lining to any cloud life hands her. I've added her son, Kai, to the name because of the fragrance of honey, he is becoming a beekeeper like his grandfather Rick, Pop.

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I've been lucky that all my additions to my iris garden have been fragrant. Not perhaps as strong as the common purple one that causes me to see my mother's kitchen with the light pressing into through the bamboo shades on the outside and the closed venetian blinds inside, still managing to give a summer glow to the wall and the counter where the pitcher of Kool-Aid, darkly purple, sits dripping with condensation and smelling like the iris I love, no, not as strong as that, but strong enough. And like Stephie and Kai's Gold, each new addition has brought it's own twist to the sweet flavor of late spring, and the fanfare of summer's commencement.

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White with yellow beard and shoulders gives off a lovely sweet fragrance,

like cookies out of the oven.

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My purchased irises have not grown out to be what they were labeled to be. This white one is supposed to be "Immortality" but a proper "Immortality" does not have yellow shoulders and isn't purported to be fragrant. Hmmm, perhaps the bin at the local garden store is not a reliable place to pick up named varieties.

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I've looked and looked for what this white one is supposed to be along with the blue one below and the pink one I failed to get a picture of this year (it must have been deleted). I even spent time looking for Stephie's gold one. Just when I think I have one pegged, on closer evaluation and comparison of the official description and the flower I have, I am left without a name. So I'll just name them myself.

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This white one..... "Farmhouse Bride". In honor of my second oldest Michelle, a bearded iris lover like myself, who was the first girl to be married right here at the farm. She looked as lovely as this blossom. She and the fragrances of her wedding that swirled around all of us for weeks is brought to mind by the sweet fragrance of this flower.

Supposedly "Best Bet" but not, so now it is "Better Bet".

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This blue one was supposed to be a "Best Bet". I picked it up for it's name, Bet, for that is what we call Elisabet, my third daughter. I know that the privilege of naming a variety usually rest with the person who hybridizes or discovers them. But since I cannot find what their rightful name is I figure I need to name these poor little orphans that have come to live here with me at Vicktory Farm and Gardens.

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Oh, I know most flowers and bushes don't need fancy proper names, their beauty in the yard is just as grand and compelling without a name as it is with a proper name. But lately I have been picking up this or that flower and paying attention to its proper name and Bet and I have been having fun discussing them as if they were a real person. So my plants need names now.

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And how much fun to rename my irises after my girls and their families, even if it is terribly improper! So the last one, the one I don't have a picture of, I've pegged for my youngest, how appropriate that I don't have a picture of it! Next year I'll show her to you. Her name on the bin when I took her home was "Pink Parasol", I cannot for the life of me find a Pink Parasol iris, lots of other flowers have a Pink Parasol variety but not the bearded iris as far as I can tell.

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This girl begins as a purple bud, changes to a muddy mauve when it first unfolds and then becomes a delightful rich dusty corallish pink, with a nearly day-glow orange beard. Mmmm perhaps a nice long name like "What Will You Wear Today Anna".

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Have a great day and take a spin around the world and see some other flowers for the day by clicking on Today's Flowers up at the top of this, another Lengthy Lanny Post!

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And Dear Reader, if you're an American, have a great flag day!

Ode to Dil a Down Daffy

Today's flower at Vicktory Farm and Gardens is the daffodil.

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Pierce County, Washington has celebrated her daff-o-down-dillies since they began to replace the hops as the Puyallup valley's main crop in the twenties.

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Kai says, "Lets go to the Daffodil Parade."

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The parade goes through downtown Tacoma, Puyallup, main street Sumner, and little Orting.

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Old guys and their old trucks and tractors, what would a parade be without them?

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Growing up, the valley was hillside to hillside, foot hill to bay filled with daffodils this time of year.

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There is quite a Scottish contingent in Pierce Co.
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A big bright drum,
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And a ol's scot on his bag o' pipes.

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Anne and Kai, anticipating what is coming next.

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All daffodils are part of the very large Narcissus family of flowers.

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These parade horses are ridden by the Tacoma Lariettes, a woman's exclusive drill team.
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More parade horses from the Medieval Fair.

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Narcissus include Paper whites, Jonquils, and Angel Tears.
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The best way to see a parade is on some one's shoulders.

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Daffodils are the first to bloom of the larger spring flowering bulbs, they come at a time in the Pacific Northwest when spring has really arrived.

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What parade would be complete with out floats?

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The theme is "Swing Into Spring" and I feel I have definitely swung!

_ It was a beautiful day for the parade yesterday and today was even better!

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All of the Pierce County's high schools participate in the Daffodil Festival, each school chooses a princess, that float is covered in daffodils.
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The Daffodil Festival officials are called Daffodillians and wear these lovely yellow jackets, I wonder if the lady on the left takes her jacket with her when she has her hair colored?

_ Sunshine and parades just make you feel like smoochin' something! Anna was getting kisses from Aksel all day long!

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Have I mentioned I hate slugs? Have I mentioned how much I appreciate that slugs don't prefer daffodils?
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Going to the parade on a sunny Saturday afternoon, marching in the band in the parade or watching a friend in the parade was always an event not to be missed.

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When I was a girl we took Sunday drives and the first ones in the spring to see the daffodil fields where definitely a toot on a horn.

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I like the bands that have very traditional uniforms.

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But Eatonville High School Cruisers have a very clever twist on the non-traditional uniform. Timber cruising involves walking or “cruising” a forest in order to measure the trees and collect other information about the forest.

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A sunny day, a sunny tuba, a sunny smile,

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a sunny flower. See more flowers at Today's Flowers a great place to see flowers from all over the world, some exotic and some common, all beautiful.

Dear Reader, I hope you had a good weekend, mine has been very good, and very spontaneous, thanks to my oldest daughter and my grandsons. This was a good Palm Sunday and I pray that everyone has drawn closer to God as they reflected on our Savior and the beginning of His Passion.

Annual Things We Never Seem To Do Annually

But some that we do do annually, that is what is on my mind today.

I was just telling a friend that October seems to be a time that the calendar fills up with lots of potential events to attend. This weekend was the date of the local Greek festival, a favorite with us girls, the Farm Fest in our county at several different locations, and a very cool historical happening.

We took advantage of the cool historical reenactment. No pictures though because not only can you not do flash pictures even the digital camera gave off too bright a light. Sure could have brought my old SLR film camera but then you still wouldn't have seen the pictures.

Last night in spite of some of the family getting over a fever and sinus crud and one person just coming down with a fever, the whole family ended up at the Candle Light Tour at Fort Nisqually in Point Defiance Park. In the dark and in the rain. We have gone as a family several times in the past, always meaning to go every year. But each year that we go we add on a new family or new son as the case may be. It is cool.

Fort Nisqually was the site of a Hudson Bay trading post. Here is a paragraph from their web site:

Travel back in time with us and experience life in Washington Territory during the fur trade era. A Hudson's Bay Company outpost built in 1833, Fort Nisqually was the first European settlement on Puget Sound. With a diverse work force of American, English, French Canadian, Hawaiian, Irish, Native American, and Scottish laborers, Fort Nisqually was a bustling center of trade that expanded into a large scale agricultural enterprise.

On the first weekend in October, in the hours of dark, they host a guided tour through the restored fort which for the two nights is filled with people from 1855. Some of them are camped just outside the gate of the fort, they can be seen cooking their dinner, telling stories, disciplining children, making plans for trapping expeditions or what they are going to be picking up in trade. But they are never caught talking to or acknowledging us, even if they trip over us on their way to and fro doing their duties of day to day living.

As we go on into the fort we come into a small house with men gathered around the table and the women are gathered in a side room spinning and looking over sewing. Just outside of this house there was a new addition of a tent covering an area where some people from 1855 were having fun dancing to a fiddle.

Then we go across the yard of the fort to the Black Smith's shop, where two men were working at a forge, shaping a piece of iron work. On into the warehouse to see more 1855ians the on to the store for more conversation between the shopkeeper and a traveler. On to the Factor's house where they are always entertaining someone important and having a beautiful dinner served from the cook house which is out the back side of the house.

We all had great fun and it fit just perfectly into Kai's recent studies he has been doing with Momma Stephanie see We Interupt This... It was the Bowerman's first trip to the Fort (no new sons yet.) We are sorry that some of our other family members and friends from Friday night gathering couldn't make it. Some people believe in staying home when they are sick! Or need to get up early!

Most likely we won't be getting around to any of those other things this weekend some of us just can't get our act together and some are sick. But we are looking forward to our annual (and this time I mean annual) Leif Erickson day.

When I do Leif Erickson day I reserve the right to pick any ol' weekend in October. Our friend who introduced us to and who has hosted many of our first Leif Erickson Days is up at the Harvest Fest this weekend selling her little sheep. She always tries to aim for the weekend of Columbus Day for their family's Leif Erickson Day because some of us of Scandinavian decent and those of us married to the Lutefisk eaters, like to celebrate the real first European explorer of America. Check it out it is true!

We also include a little Irish food to humor those of us who have heritage ties to the Irish monk who was the actual first European to lay eyes on America, but he didn't stick around so he just gets a dish or two.

When our friends first invited us, my husband cooked their Lutefisk for them. My husband is Swedish (more on his grandma and grandpa on a later post) and they are all Norwegian but they had to admit that inviting Dirt was a very good thing because he makes the absolute best Lutefisk they have ever tasted.

I do believe I have the most accurate description of this foreign food (I am the Scotch-Irish, German, Dutch, Dane in the group) as (cover your ears if your sensitive) boiled snot with white sauce. Oh wait you heard that I shoulda told you to cover your eyes! Uh oh my bad.

Anyway we are having a Leif Erickson party on the eighteenth of October (time TBA) but most likely all day! You are all welcome to come just RSVP please as I would hate to run out of Lutefisk. Or meatballs, real fish, fried chicken, potatoes, beets, cabbage dishes, gelatin's of all sorts, pickled herring, lefse, hard tack, rye bread, Swedish dinner rolls, butter, cream sauce, cookies, cakes, coffee just to name a few of the things.

For fun I think we will be designing our canoes over into Viking ships for our not-quite-annual annual Christmas Viking invasion of the Irish settlement. So bring your ideas, I'll have some plywood and if you have some paint bring it too. We'll see if Dale will let us use his canoe too or his row boat but I think the canoes will look slightly more realistic.

But now I am going to bed because I think the girls have infected me. I'm very achy all over. But hey, it was inevitable. I hope in my pre-illness delirium I have not written too long of sentences and used too many commas or not enough out of fear of using too many.

Good night Gracie.

My Old Fair Job

A few years ago, in 2000, when my oldest daughter was about to get married I was offered to work as a cook at Myers burgers at the fair. I went back a few years, skipped a year and did a couple more.
Anne from Seattle is dumping onions on the grill. The onions go down and then get dressed with peppers and paprika. So along with serving up the burger, the cooks on the ends tend the onions. Turning and moving them, saving some really dark ones for special orders but making sure that most are beautifully lightly carmelized, its the sugar in the onion.
The onions bring the customers in but the onions make the cooks and their cloths stink. For days, no matter how many times you bathe. Unless you bathe with Dr. Bonner's castille soap with peppermint. But man it makes your body parts tingle. At the end of the fair I just wanted to burn my clothes, shoes, hair and car.

Sue here on this end is Anne's sister, she is a big wig at Starbucks in charge of setting up stores and offices (I think). She is doing the same job Anne is doing for the counter girls down on this end. Rudy (my favorite co-worker (just cuz he was the first person I worked with and he was nice and patient with me)) is in the center and so he is the burger fryer. He puts down the raw meat and then tends it on the grill. Rudy lives in umm Eastern Washington near Wenatchee the name of he town is scaping my brain but I guess that isn't important.

I think they are singing because they didn't know it was me taking the pictures.

They wear short sleeves cuz it is hot hot hot back there. But I worn long sleeves and long pants and boots cuz I don't like spatter burns. Ouch! I also wore a baseball cap everyday except one.

The inside, now they know who I am. These silver drawers over on the right is where the buns are kept warm. The counter behind the cooks is a cold bench in the center that helps keep the frozen burgers cold till they are used. The end benches hold the cheese in iced trays and other things like gloves and thermometers. Buns are stored underneath.

This is Larry the "Fry Guy" one year he got us in shape with timers for the frys. I never really minded doing frys but I liked serving (putting burgs together and up for the counter girls) the best. Flippin meat in the middle was way too much pressure.

Okay, girls I'm done saying hi to my old friends.

Where is dad?

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