Sign Time Again

Driving around on Camano Island yesterday I saw this sign at a small park. MB


Oh yeah it is April Fools Day. who claims it?

Peeking~~~~~~from the deck

Ah....Spring

The Colonel's House

Ain't it grand to be a Colonel in the 1900 Army.



This is the Colonel's House at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island.

Yellow Skunk Cabbage

Western Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus), sometimes called yellow skunk cabbage, is a plant found in swamps and wet woods, along streams and in other wet areas of the Pacific Northwest, where it is one of the few native species in the arum family, together with the duckweeds. The plant grows from rhizomes that measure 30 cm or longer, and 2.5 to 5 cm in diameter. The leaves are the largest of any native plant in the region, 50-135 cm long and 30-80 cm wide when mature. The skunk cabbage also produces heat. During the Winter the heat it produces melts the snow around it so that it is able to survive. Although similarly named, the plant is easy to distinguish from the Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), another species in the arum family found in eastern North America.
The plant is called Skunk Cabbage because of the malodorous, distinctive "skunky" odor that it emits. This odor will permeate the area where the plant grows, and can be detected even in old, dried specimens. The foul odor attracts its pollinators, scavenging flies and beetles. Other common names include Yellow Skunk Cabbage and Swamp Lantern.
Its large, waxy leaves were important to food preparation and storage. They were commonly used to line berry baskets and to wrap around whole salmon and other foods when baked under a fire. It is also used to cure sores and swelling.

As they grow larger I will post more pics. MB

Another day

Another picture looking out from the deck. today the sun is shing and there is a sky. MB

Tulips and Fence

Pink Camellia by porch light

My Camellias by my front porch taken last night.

Visit with Great Grandmother

I Went to visit my Mother yesterday. Of course I spent the whole day. My Grandson Mike is home from college on Spring Break so he came along. He helped her with her computer. She seemed to understand what he was explaining---they looked so cute together--you know--19 and 94!!!
She gave me her silver thimble that belonged to her GreatGrandmother. Very special.
MB

Golden geese

They came back to check out the pond---again. Maybe babies next month.

Check out more sepia scenes or participate at;
http://www.sepiascenes.blogspot.com/

White on white & popcorn fields

I was down in the Valley today checking out the Daffs and how the Tulips were coming along. I always have a hard time trying to catch a flying bird but I sorta did with these Trumpeter Swan. So I had to show off. Did you know the Trumpeter Swan has an 8ft wing span. Yep!!

The bottom pic is a field of white daffs. Pretty cool, huh!
MB

Woo Hoo......I'm almost ready........

....to bloom, said the baby Tulips

But I don't wanna!!!

Kylee on Dally and her mom working with a young one. This is the first time anyone ever has been on Dally. He is pretty calm.

Blue

Even the blue was perfect.

Found in Stanwood, Wa.

click on pic to enlarge

Happy St. Paddy's Day

Spring Green just in time. MB

Real cherry rod.....

That's what we'd say back in my day.
I passed this hotrod as I was going down the hill to Pioneer Highway to Stanwood---turn left.
MB

Sign #5

Found on the door intp the Women's restroom at a roadside rest area in Eastern Washington. On the way to Moses Coulee.
I thought it was funny.

Clear Lake Washington

Clear Lake is a nice little town with a nice lake which also is a County Park. I have (at an earlier time) posted pictures of Kylee riding her horse out and about at and in Clear Lake.
Population today is 942


Some of the finest timber in the world covered the mountain foothills adjacent to Clear Lake. There were fir, cedar, hemlock, spruce, white pine, larch, and deciduous trees. Although there were settlers in the area as early as 1877, it was not until 1891 that the community of Clear Lake began to grow. In that year, a shingle mill was built followed by a number of other businesses to support a growing population. By December, 1899, there were several hotels, a meat market, a telephone company, a community church, and a school building among others. In 1906, the population had grown to 350 people. Clear Lake was a logging town with logging camps sprawled throughout the area. Fifty million feet of logs could be stored in Clear Lake while awaiting mill operations. At least a 1,000 people lived there around 1915 plus another 500 or 500 in camps around the outskirts of the town. By 1925, the mill, heart of the town, failed and brought down many Clear Lake businesses with it. Today, the town is a ghost of its former self.

Peaviners

Here is a closer look at a Pea-viner. See how it pulls up the pea vines --just gobbles them up and spits out the peas.



Pea-viners are huge farm machines that lumber down the highway 5 at a time. They go from farm to farm working from sun up to sundown and some times later. They are equipped with lights. In the fields they slowly make their way around the field. They work like a vacuum cleaner--to me that is---sucking up the pea vines and the vines go up a ramp and the somehow the peas are stripped off the vines and out of their pods and deposited in another hopper. The spent vines are shot out the back of the machine. When the hopper is full the peas are dumped into a waiting truck and whisked off to the frozen food plant. Namely--Twin City Foods in Stanwood.
After the leftover vines have lain in the fields for a day or so they are baled and used for cow hay.
BUT:
Twin City Foods announced last year that because of a surplus of peas and the use lessening they would do no peas this year. That leaves the farmers that have planted peas for years trying to decide what to do.

farming sign #4

It's getting close to planting tim and a lot of farmers are plowing and disking. this piece of farm machinery is a pea viner---that's what we call them anyway. Peas aren't planted yet but pea harvest is usually June or July. Not too many farmers planting peas this year because the the processers have decided not to do peas this year. TwinCity Foods which is in Stanwood has always, since farming in stanwood started, been the processer so we will see what happens.

Stanwood, Wa.

Stanwood was established by Saxton Hale in 1848, Stanwood was officially incorporated on October 19, 1903 and grew at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River one mile east of the 1891 Seattle-Montana Great Northern Railway tracks. East Stanwood (along the railroad tracks) was platted in 1906 and incorporated in 1922. The two towns consolidated in 1960.