My first photo post - Let's go see the tulips

Every year Skagit Valley, WA has a huge Tulip Festival. There are hundreds of acres of tulips, salmon dinners, art shows, field tours, food, flowers to purchase, games and all sorts of fun going on.

The parking areas are decorated with hundreds of blooming tulips . . .

We've driven down there every year except one, since we moved here in 2001. You can just take the driving tour - and there are lots of signs pointing you to where the fields are, or you can park at a number of locations and tour the fields and take photos -

or you can stop in at the flower stands all along the way and buy huge bundles of tulips . .

and if the timing is right, big bundles of daffodils. The daffodils bloom a little earlier than the tulips but sometimes we are very lucky and get to see both at the same time. You can get 10 stems of daffodils for 1.00 - so load up!!!

The festival is a celebration of the flowers, but the plants are big business - they are grown for the bulbs. Many of the flowers are picked and sold during the festival, but when the time is right - all the flowers are picked off and discarded so the plants can put all their energy into growing the big fat bulbs we love to plant in our yards every spring. Sometimes there are no flowers for the festival because it has been too cold, sometimes there are millions of flowers in the fields, and sometimes it has gotten too warm and the flowers are past their prime and must be plucked off by the farm workers.


So it just depends on the year - and the weather, as to whether or not you will see the flowers. Usually there are some flowers to see, some years there are more than others, and some years all you see is empty fields of green leaves after all the flowers are cut off - and piles and piles of dead flowers.

We are fortunate enough to live close to Skagit Valley and can take a couple experimental trips down there to scout out the best bloom time.

Tulips abound in every yard . . .

There are endless varieties in the rows and rows of flowers . . .

Like a patchwork quilt . . .

And lovely quilts made in honor of the festival. I started this butterfly quilt when we moved to Washington in March 2001, and after that first April and a day at the Tulip Festival I just knew that I had to add tulips to the quilt.

Some years it is very rainy and the dirt is full of clay and makes big mud blobs on your feet . . .

And here is the easter bunny . . .

Rows and rows of tulips - every where you look . . .

But there are other things to see in that area - the spring time gives us a glorious show of blooms of all sorts.

And daffodils . . .

My favorite daffodil picture in the whole world - our oldest daughter. She was 17 months old - very tiny for her age. That is a regular sized daffodil, it just looks big because she is so small. She had just gotten out of the hospital in Sitka, Alaska after surgery. I made her that darling dress from a bundle of fabric that I ordered from the Sears catalog. You never knew what you would get in the bundle - but there was always something fun. We were just about to leave for the airport to fly to Texas.

There are flowering trees along driveways this time of the year . . .

Oh the heavenly scent . . .

This is a Tulip Tree - a species of magnolia that grows abundantly in our area - there are masses of these trees blooming in the early spring. You feel like you could float right into the blossoms.

Another familiar sight you will see during the Tulip Festival is the sign for the Uff Da Shoppe in the nearby town of Stanwood - always a favorite spot to stop and get a Norwegian souvenier.

A house Bellingham, they always has the prettiest bed of red tulips . . .

Our grandson Jahn - on a family trip to the Tulip Festival -
before he came into our lives
- what a precious boy he is.

A lovely bouquet of tulips brought to us by our kids one year . . . nothing is quite so cheery as a bouquet of tulips . . .

I hope you enjoyed the trip through the tulips - as Tiny Tim would sing
Tiptoe through the tulips, with meeeee. . .

Spring is just around the corner - it is - really - truly - it will be here any day - now if that snow would just melt .