Joe's Garden

My favorite place for flowers

I made my way to Joe's Garden this afternoon to pick up some pretty flowers as well as some garden starts. This is one of the best places in the area for just about anything to do with gardens.

An abundance of flowers and veggie starts

I learned that it is still too early for cucumber starts, as well as zucchini. That means I'll be going back again in a few weeks for them. By that time, all these starts will be gone, if it follows anything like previous seasons. Here's what I bought today:

Flowers and veggies

There are snapdragons, tomato plants, arugula, collards, sugar snap peas, and maybe a bit more that I cannot remember having decided on in the heat of the hunt! I'll be back soon for more wonderful plants. Meanwhile, I'll get these into the ground as soon as possible. I love this time of the year.
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Saturday fun in the sun

Whatcom Falls and sunbeams

Another amazingly beautiful sunny Saturday, with a couple dozen of us walkers heading to Whatcom Falls park to enjoy an almost-five-mile loop, before returning to the parking lot and then heading out for coffee and snacks. I have taken this particular picture for years, because it's always new to my eyes, and today it has just the right amount of water flowing over the rocks. Not too much and not too little, so I took several. This one has rays of the sun in the upper right, making it a favorite.

Catkins and pussy willows

At one point I looked up to see the blossoms and catkins in front of the blue blue sky. Catkins are notorious for giving me a case of the sniffles, but I'm armed with my daily dose of FloNase, which is helping me get through the allergy season in good shape. Everything here is coming alive and gracing our walks with daffodils in abundance and blossoms on the trees. Makes me so happy.

Front porch flowers

I have planted almost all of my pots on the front porch this year, with just a few still awaiting new flowers. The trees are still not showing any buds, but that will change within the next week or so, I suspect. It's greening up everywhere. We are quite a bit below normal in expected rainfall for the year, which is unusual for us. I think we have only had about a quarter of our annual precipitation normal by this time of the year.

Closeup of the flowers

Now the next place for my outdoor energy will go into the garden. I've bought the compost bags to add to my plot before beginning my planting. I have noticed that most of the other gardeners have already started, so I don't want to get too far behind. The afternoon, and the sunshine, is beckoning.

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Mt. Erie and Sugarloaf 2019

Our group today (plus me behind the camera)

What a beautiful day we had! Fourteen Senior Trailblazers started today's hike at Heart Lake, going on the Anacortes Community Forest Land (ACFL) dense warren of trails to make our way to both Sugarloaf and Mt. Erie.

The ACFL trails

We began at Heart Lake in the upper left corner (pardon the glare on the map, it was intensely sunny most of the day) and followed Al as he led us through the maze. Without his help, it would have been impossible for most of us to figure out the trails. As it was, we still had to do a bit of backtracking now and then.

Lightened trees in the forest

Sometimes we had wide trails like the one above, and other times they were normal single-file trails through dense forest. The picture of the group is taken at what is called the Little Round Top, which Al called our first summit of the day. And then we got to Sugarloaf, our second summit.

Sugarloaf summit

This beautiful area gives us our first view of the water and mountains in the distance. You can see we had a few clouds, which cleared as the day went on, and we took a few moments here to have a snack before descending on our way to Mt. Erie.

Olympics across the water

We had few hikers who had never been here before. I'm so glad they were treated to such great views, along with us old-timers who have been here when there was no view at all.

Almost to the summit of Mt. Erie

And then we had to descend before starting up the trail to the summit of Mt. Erie. This summit can be reached by car, and every once in awhile we could see the road, but we took the trails and were glad to have the wonderful forest as an alternate way to reach the summit.

View from summit of Mt. Erie

Wow! It was a gorgeous day, with magnificent views to enjoy while we had our lunch. Mt. Erie is almost 1,300 feet high, and from Heart Lake we ascended around 1,000 feet, but there is much up and down throughout the day's hike and all in all, we climbed and descended around 2,000 feet in total.

Artsy shot from the top

We enjoyed the day, filled with sunshine and adventure, as well as what I found to be the first buds I've seen yet this year. The bushes will soon be in full bloom, and we did see some Indian plum beginning to bloom, but for now it is still very early for much spring greenery.

Tiny green buds in the sunlight

We hiked around eight miles in total, and although there was a bit of confusion when two hikers fell behind for a few minutes, once we found each other, we all made it back to the cars with a wonderful day to remember for a long time. I again feel incredibly grateful not only for the place I live, but for the company I get to keep! May I continue to enjoy these hikes for a long time to come. Happy spring!
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Nice people in the world

Fox on left, two cheeky chickens on right

Yesterday I received a lovely gift in the mail from one of my virtual friends, Rian. She is a lover of all things feline, and also makes little clay animals. I admired them and she asked if I'd like to have one or two for myself. I said yes, of course, and here they are! The sleeping fox is apparently friends with the chickens, since he didn't bother waking up when I placed them next to him.

Rian's website is here, if you want to visit her and meet her cats as well. Since I've been following her for a long time, I know all the stories about the cats, and how much she's been enjoying her pottery métier. I'm happy to be able to offer a home to these critters.

I have another virtual friend who has sent me numerous gifts over the years, and it always amazes me that there are people in the world who give freely from their heart like they do. I am very blessed indeed. Puts a smile on my face just to think of them.
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Signs of spring

Blossoms!

Walking to my yoga class on Friday, I saw that the cherry (?) trees are already in bloom in Fairhaven. I was happy to see this unmistakable sign of spring greeting my eyes. And I have to say that the yoga class is just what my sore and tired body needed after Thursday's hard hike. Getting out of bed was the worst part of my day; before too long I only had to hang onto the rails when descending stairs. By the end of class, I was feeling much better.

Display at the local grocery store

This morning I walked 5.2 miles around Lake Padden twice with the ladies (and Gordon), and some of us went to the local grocery store for coffee together afterwards.  Now that I am home and all worked out for the day, I decided to do some household chores and then sit down in my easy chair and take it, well, easy!
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Mud Lake 2019

Today's group; Melanie took the picture

Twelve Senior Trailblazers went on a rather hard hike today, to one of my least favorite places, Mud Lake. Why is that, you ask? Let me tell you about our day. It starts out at the Pine and Cedar trailhead and starts going straight up: in 1.6 miles, you gain 1,300 feet of elevation (almost 400 meters) before you get to the junction with the Hemlock trail. And that's just the start.

Woodpeckers did this? 

We passed this amazing dead tree, where it appears that woodpeckers have been mining it for bugs and making it into a work of art. The trail is very nice at the beginning, even if steep, as you can see here.

Mud Lake

Instead of going to Pine and Cedar Lakes, at least at first, we kept going on the trail until we ran into an old logging road. This road takes us down around 800 feet to the lake, where we considered having lunch, but some of us really don't like to hike back uphill after lunch, so we decided to head to Pine Lake first. So we turned around and hiked back up.

Boardwalks to Pine Lake

By the time we got to Pine Lake, we ran into our first snow of the day. It was pretty slippery on the boardwalks that take you over to our usual lunch spot. And when we looked at the lake, this is what we saw.

Pine Lake

The lake is still mostly covered with ice! On the far shore you can see a bit of open water, and in the foreground some slushy ice, but all the rest of the lake is still frozen. And this is after a week of very warm weather.

Our lunch spot

Once we made it safely to our usual place for lunch, we settled in for a lovely break from all that strenuous work. By this time we had covered well over six miles and lots of elevation, so it was nice to rest for awhile.

Cedar Lake

After lunch, we headed over to Cedar Lake, because a few of us wanted to get to the Cedar Lake viewpoint. This did add some distance to our hike, which made me a bit grumpy, as I was already feeling well worked out. I mislaid my sense of humor but was able to find it again once we made it to the viewpoint.

Mt. Baker and the Sisters

What a spectacular view! As you can see, the weather was perfect, and the high clouds only made it more beautiful. Now it was time to head back to the cars. We still had a fair amount of distance to cover, most of it downhill, which always makes my knees complain. I couldn't have done it without my trekking poles to lean on.

Melanie looking for the other hikers

In this picture, we were almost down, and Melanie, our leader for the day, was conscientiously looking to see the last person before we went on any farther. I was glad to stop for a minute. But finally, we were back down, having covered well over nine miles and 2,900 feet of elevation (almost 900 meters)! No wonder I feel so tired.

But it was a really good day, and once my knees and bunion stop hurting, I'll be very glad I did it. The company was once again delightful, and the fact that I can still do this makes me very happy.
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An interesting woman indeed

Diana Athill

I'm not sure who it was that suggested I might be interested in reading Diana Athill's memoirs, but, curious, I went online and learned all about her. She died earlier this year at the age of 101. She was a skilled editor during her early years and began to write short stories and several other books in her 40s, and won several prestigious awards.

I just finished Instead of a Letter, written in 1962. I loved it, and I've got her most famous book on order: Somewhere Towards the End, written in her 90s. The New York Times published a revealing and fascinating obituary about her. There was one section in her book that resonated with me, which I share with you here.

  Marcel ... did not find objective reality a comfort. Once he leant out of a window in the Savoy Hotel, looked down on trees in which starlings were bickering their way to bed, and pavements over which people were hurrying, then slammed the window shut and exclaimed, "I can't bear it!"
  "What can't you bear?"
  "The thought that I might die in the night, and next morning everything would still be going on. All those bastards trotting up and down the street, and those silly birds chirping. It's horrible! Sometimes, when I'm at home, I wake in the middle of the night and start thinking about it, And then I have to telephone my sister."
  "What does she do?"
  "She comes over and makes tea for me, and talks. Sometimes I keep her up all night."
  He walked up and down the room, splashing whiskey out of his glass in his agitation, his mouth twitching, his eyes bilious: a sad little figure for whom the world would not come to an end.
  To me, on the other hand, the knowledge that everything will still be going on is the answer. If I die with my wits about me, not shuffled out under drugs or reduced to incoherence by pain, I want my last thoughts to be of plants growing, children being born, people who never knew me digging their gardens or telephoning their friends. It is the existence of other things and other people that I can feel the pulse of my own: the pulse. Something which hums and throbs in everything, and thus in me. (Instead of a Letter, pp. 236-7)

I look forward to reading more of her works, and I hope I've tempted you to check her out, if you didn't know about her before.
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