June at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market
June 15, 2016
This morning I stopped by the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market after dropping my daughter off at the airport for an early morning flight. There were buyers lined up at the door at 6 o’clock when the Market opened. It has been a while since I last visited and things have changed — new vendors, rearranged spaces, new market manager. But the selection and quality of the flowers is as spectacular as always.
I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible while I took a few photos. Here they are:
Multiplied Green
April 22, 2016
Metamorphosis
by May Sarton
Always it happens when we are not there —
The tree leaps up alive into the air.
Small open parasols of Chinese green
Wave on each twig. But who has ever seen
The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?
Spring always manages to get there first.
Lovers of wind, who will have been aware
Of a faint stirring in the empty air,
Look up one day through a dissolving screen
To find no star, but this multiplied green,
Shadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.
Listen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!
This is the season of the greening of the world. Trees and bushes and lawns are in a range of green values. Some trees are in full leaf. Others are still emerging green. And it’s true, you can’t ever seem to catch the exact moment when the green bursts forth. Suddenly it’s just there.
Deciduous Spring
by Robert Penn Warren
Now, now, the world
All gabbles joy like geese, for
An idiot glory the sky
Bangs. Look!
Now, are
Bangles dangling and
Spangling, in sudden air
Wangling, then
Hanging quiet, bright.
The world comes back, and again
Is gabbling, and yes,
Remarkably worse, for
the world is a whirl of
Green mirrors gone wild with
Deceit, and the world
Whirls green on a string, then
The leaves go quiet, wink
From their own shade, secretly.
Keep still, just a moment, leaves.
There is something I am trying to remember.
Intensely Ordinary
October 18, 2015
Extrapolating from the Spring Flowers Rising from the Mold
February 26, 2013
“I never see the spring flowers rising from the mould, or the pond lilies born of the black ooze, that matter does not become transparent and reveal to me the working of the same celestial powers that fashioned the first man from the common dust.”
— John Burroughs, “The Grist of the Gods,” from The Art of Seeing Things: Essays by John Burroughs, edited by Charlotte Zoe Walker
A commonplace miracle — witnessing rebirth, regeneration in spring flowers.
Labor Day Message: Manifesting Your Gratitude in Work
September 3, 2012
” . . . work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.”
— Stanley Kunitz, The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden
Today’s quote is food for thought on this Labor Day holiday — work as a manifestation of gratitude. I do believe that some of the most fortunate people are those who have found work that offers meaning and pleasure. The kind of work that you never want to retire from.
Parenting is that kind of work. As is farming and gardening, teaching and construction. Nurturing life. Creating beauty and usefulness. How lucky are those who have found work that feeds the soul.
The Earth Laughs
July 30, 2012
“The Earth laughs in Flowers.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
The hillside at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle is a delight of blooming wildflowers. The groundskeepers there have mowed paths so that you can stroll on the tilted terrain overlooking Elliott Bay. I can’t decide which I like better, the natural view or the impressive sculptures.
You have to get up early to catch the action at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market. The doors open at 6 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and by 6:30 a.m. the warehouse is already a whirl of activity. Florists and buyers arrive at sunrise for the freshest blooms. I can image the local growers on the road in the pre-dawn darkness hurrying to get their flowers to market in time for this buying rush.

Seattle Wholesale Growers Market is open to the public on Fridays from 10 – 2 (small fee for admission)
This has obviously been a good year for our local flower growers, and it is gratifying to see the market flourishing. Summer is a season of abundance in the flower fields, and inside the warehouse was a bounteous array of choices for bouquets and floral arrangements. Here are some photos:
Black and Orange Lilies
July 19, 2012
Black in flowers is simply arresting. These lilies in a neighbor’s garden attracted my eye because this was the blackest black I had ever seen in a flower. So often black flowers are deep, deep purple. I can see some purple in these lilies as well, but the color verges on true black.
I see my blog as something of an online nature journal. All it takes is a walk outside my door to come up with something new to share, like seeing black in a flower. I am often amazed at how inexhaustible Nature is.
Most often there is no improving on Nature, but I couldn’t resist trying some special effects on my photo editing software. Here they go:
Furnished with Flowers
July 12, 2012
“How fitting to have every day, in a vase of water on your table, the wild flowers of the season which are just blossoming. Can any house be said to be furnished without them?”
— Henry David Thoreau, Journal, July 5, 1852
I love having a few natural things, found objects or a bloom or two, on my work table. but whenever I’m given one of my friend Carol’s spectacular bouquets, I just bask in their beauty.