Spring, the Awaited Season
April 20, 2014
“Spring is the awaited season. . . . Not a season at all but a longing. At my age it is natural to ask: how many more times shall I witness this waiting? The waiting is for a new beginning. It is not a question of the year being young but of the offer of choices again. In the winter of discontent, there are not choices.”
— John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket
Tulip field, Skagit Valley
Last year in April I was in the Netherlands seeking the elusive tulip — elusive because unseasonably cold weather delayed the blooms until the very end of the month. This year I was content to travel closer to home. The Skagit Valley, about an hour’s drive north of Seattle, hosts a month-long Tulip Festival every April. And many fields are in peak bloom right now. I never tire of the spectacular, jewel-toned flower fields, so different from the corn and oats and soy bean fields of my Midwest childhood.
Here are some photos from the 2014 growing season:
April 20, 2014 at 6:04 am
I laughed aloud at that single pink blossom in the midst of all the yellow. Those views are just breathtaking. I just have had no idea that such things were going on in Washington. I’d love to see the tulip fields one day — more possible here than in the Netherlands, and from all appearances, just as impressive.
April 20, 2014 at 8:03 am
When we first moved here in 1989, we too had never heard about Washington’s tulb bulb industry. The blooms are beheaded after the festival so that all the growth can happen in the bulbs, which are then harvested and sold.
April 20, 2014 at 8:05 am
Couldn’t you say, “trimmed off” rather than “beheaded”?
Goodness. Everything is striking me funny this morning. :-)
April 20, 2014 at 9:34 am
Off with their heads!
April 20, 2014 at 12:10 pm
just an amazing scene of colors….