bloomin update

 

Things continue to grow and bloom in the 20th Avenue Garden.  Here's an update of what's flowering and how the garden is coming along.

 

The garden itself is looking lush and is in full production.  We built some little A-frame trellises for things to climb up on, like zucchinis and other squashes. And the strings you see are for the hops - now that the weather is warm, they will grow about 1 foot/day...so they can crawl along the strings and create an overhead canopy.  Other than that, the corn is knee-high (and its the 4th of July), the tomatoes are coming online, the artichokes are about ready for harvest, and the lettuce, beets, radishes, greens, chamomile, peas, herbs, strawberries, and even the cherries are ready for eatin.

 

Bee love on the marigold. 

 

Buddha overseeing the nasturtiums 

 

soon-to-be tomatoes 

 

soon-to-be tomatillos 

 

pea flowers 

 

leek flowers - which the bees love more than anything 

 

thyme flowers 

 

squash of some sort 

 

chamomile 

 garlic harvest

 

more marigolds, of the striped variety 

 

soon-to-be strawberries and artichoke 

 

velvet queen watching over the Centenarian 

 

a California poppy! (shhhh....) 

 

round 3 of the frontyard lupine 

 

awesome calendula 

 

small sunflower 

 

yellow calendulas 

 

a Sunset Magazine-style backyard...right?

ladybug

Isn't this the coolest ladybug you've ever seen?  I guess in reality all ladybugs are cool - but this one really caught our eye today.

bright grey

 

When storms roll through here, often the sun will peek under the clouds and light everything up.  The grey clouds provide a stark backdrop - this is one of my favorite signature scenes in the PacNorWest.

 

 

 

friday in muttonland

 

Adrienne and I are homebodies.  Stayin in on a Friday night is no problem for us.  Heck, even if we stay in Saturday night, that's cool too.   But when we do stay in, we do it right.  There's a homemade pizza in the oven right now and its 70 degrees outside - so we opened THREE Sauvignon blancs and did a tasting.  One was mine, one was from a box, and one was a good one from from Santa Barbara.

Ps. The Muttons are myself and Adrienne - should we combine our last names, that's what we'd get.  I know - its gross.

 

"My lady, would you like some of this good stuff?"

 

"Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe?"

 

The Tasting: mine, box and SB

straight out of sunset mag

 

Adrienne snapped this photo tonight after a garden harvest.  Sunset magazine would be proud.

hangin in our backyard

No, not our backyard with all the flowers and vegetables...I mean our backyard as in "our backyard of Washington."  Today, in an hour's drive from our house we were at a seemingly distant trailhead, donning boots and hiking to Lake Serene.  We started in the green green rainforest under super cloudy skies, but after climbing a couple thousand feet ended up in the rocky peaks at a still frozen-over lake.

Yes, its mid-June.

Our good friends Simon and Faith and Hala joined us for the first outing of the season - was a spectacular day.

 

AJ under Bridalveil Falls

 

forest color

 

dopey hikers

 

gaining altitude

 

new ferns

 

brute strength

 

fallen log

 

after the rain

 

approaching Lake Serene

 

Lake Serene

 

remember - its mid-June

 

snowfields to the lake

 

our little rosy-cheeked friend, Hala

 

wildlife!

 

AJ and JJ

 

frozen lake

 

picnicers

 

blue skies comin thru

 

river crossing, going back down 

 

verdant valley

 

Skykomish River down low

 

down the mountain we go

 

manifest destiny

 

selected greenery

 

forest light

 

fiddlehead

 

mossy maple

 

Devil's Club

 

cooling off

 

green, green, green