Springtime sights

Yesterday morning around 7:30 I walked to the bus and noticed that not only was the sun out, but a heavy dew was covering all the blossoming rhododendrons. This Washington state flower begins to bloom in early spring, and different varieties will delight me for at least the next month. These are some of the first ones I've seen; the red ones come out next and I've spied a couple of bright red bushes, but so far no pictures.

Just as I reached the bus stop, I saw several beautiful trees that are just coming into flower. I don't know what this one is, but I was really pleased with the resulting picture. If you enlarge, you can see all the dew on the top part of the petals. The color of the sky behind is so delicate, and the early morning light on the petals combined just perfectly. By the time I got out of the gym at 10:00am, it was foggy and the sun had disappeared.

What's that red dot on his bill?

This morning our Saturday walk was to Whatcom Falls Park, and I saw this gull when we went past him the first time, so on the way back I took his picture. He hadn't moved, but when I pointed the camera at him, he started to move away. I was curious about that red dot on his bill (I've seen it before), so I looked it up and linked the information under the picture. After the walk I headed over to the Farmers' Market for our weekly veggies.

Roslyn from Rabbit Fields Farm

There are many different organic farmers to buy from at the market, but I keep coming back to Roslyn because her stuff is just so darn good. I put a link so you can read about Rabbit Fields Farm if you're interested. I bought one other thing while I was there, the Easter basket filled with flowering plants.

That basket on the left is filled with pansies, sweet peas, and many other exciting flowers that will keep on giving out some color for the entire summer. I bought one of these from the vendor a few years ago, and it kept blooming all the way into the next summer but then it finally gave up. Or I forgot to water it in the wintertime. The flower pot on the railing will be giving me summer flowers to attract the hummingbirds. This is the third springtime I'll have planted flowers out there in that hanging basket.

First I line the wire basket with a coconut fiber liner. Last year I didn't do this right, and the plants died pretty quickly, so this year I went so far as to read the directions! First I soaked it in water and once I got it mashed in there, I was able to simply pull the excess parts off the top. The biggest plants are salvia, which are hummingbird magnets, and some fuschia. I forget the name of the pretty pink hanging ones; they were the only ones already in bloom and I wanted some  immediate payoff. I bought these on Wednesday and got them planted yesterday. They are so happy to be up there with their roots unbound. I am looking forward to a nice batch of hummingbirds visiting me. You'll see the results if I am successful.

That's it for today, a beautiful Saturday in the Pacific Northwest. I read that this is the first back-to-back dry weekends we've had since early September, which is why everybody is smiling and happy to have this weather. Tomorrow I'll head down to Snohomish hoping to get a few jumps in with my friends. I hope you have a great weekend, too!
:-)