A Trip to Mt. Walker

I want to thank all of my new followers!!  For everyone, I so appreciate you and the time you take in this very busy life to read my blog!! Thank you so very much!!!!  I think today's post will be a treat!  This Sat. is suppose to be the last really nice day we have for awhile-the rain is coming back!  So the SBA and I decided to take a ride to Mt. Walker.  It is on the West side of Hood Canal, a part of Puget Sound. It is the only mountain facing Puget Sound that has a road to the top! Since the SBA and I are NOT mountain climbers we decided to take the road trip. The state flower is the wild Rhododendron.   Mt. Walker is known to have a lot of them growing wild in the woods. 

 This is a view from the road going up to the top.

 Form the top, there were amazing views of the Olympic Mountains.

Glaciers from the last ice age carved Puget Sound and all of these inlets including the Hood Canal.

 We had to get about half way down before you saw the Rhododendron.  They were still in bud at the top.

This is how they look in the woods.

 Can you imagine this is a wild plant?

Tomorrow, I'll show some of the other wild flowers and some other fun things we saw along the way. "Penny America" is almost done!!! I hope you are all having a wonderful week-end!!

Update and Bird Houses!

I'm really beginning to think that I should have named this blog "A Little Bit of Everything" I used that several times for post titles.  It seems like all my posts are like that!  First, thank you again to all of you wonderful people who take time to read my ramblings.  I do so appreciate it!! We've had a great stretch of weather with little or no rain.  I even had to water my garden this week.  The 80's are gone but the mid 60's keeps me quite happy and things are still growing like mad.  We spend tons of time in the garden and yard.
I'm still plugging away with "Penny America" I am only able to stitch for about 2 hours each evening.  I will be so glad when this hand gets fixed!! As I have said before, this has been a fun stitch,  I love the bouquet of flowers in the middle. I think it will be all done by Sun. night.  Then I'll get back to the John Foster sampler till I have to stop and have the carpel tunnel surgery.  I hope this will be a terrific week-end for all of you.  Here in Poulsbo we are having a festival that is called "Viking Fest." This honors the Norwegian heritage of the settlers of this town.  I'll try to get a few photos!

 Almost done! The colors in the picture do not do justice to this pretty piece!

 Last night's work!

 We are putting a lot of time and effort into the outdoors right now.  That includes the deck. I have a small collection of bird houses on a table, along with some plants and candles.  The deck is sort of a work in progress as far as decorating!

This is full of things gathered on the shores of the pacific NW .It  is one of my favorites! Again, have a wonderful week-end!

Wisteria

First, I want to thank all of you wonderful bloggers who have taken time to  read my blog.  I also have a special thanks to those who take time to comment.  I love reading what you have to say.
As I have said many times on this blog , I LOVE old houses.  It was not in the cards for me to have one when we moved to the Pacific NW.  I fell in love with this house because when I saw the plans , I said to the SBA, "That house could be in Vermont, that's the one I want!"  It took a bit longer to convince him.  One thing I don't like is that we have a front load attached garage.  I read somewhere that vines automatically add years to the appearance of a house.  So I went about planting vines!!! The SBA built a great arbor over the garage and we planted two different vines.  On one side we have an akebia quinata"Shirobana".  If the winter isn't too bad , it stays green.  On the other side, we planted a  Chinese Wisteria.  It has not bloomed till this year.  I'm so thrilled and I just love the way the vines have improved this garage!!!

 When we had to pick out lighting, I had to order these onion -like lamps from the East. I love the way the vine twists around the lamp.

 The beautiful Wisteria. 

Thanks again for taking a look.  "Penny America" is coming along nicely.  I'll have it done even before I see the Dr. about my hand on Mon. At least that will be done before the carpel tunnel surgery!!

A Bit of Everything!

Welcome to all my new followers.  I do appreciate all of you!  And of course, I appreciate all of you who have followed this blog and those who just take a look now and then.  You are all great!!!
Yesterday was just beautiful,  the sky blue, the mountains still covered with snow, and the temps warm enough to be in flip flops! We decided to go for lunch to one of our favorite waterside restaurants.  We were on the deck for the first time this year! This is a town called Bremerton.  There is a large Navy presence in this town. You can take a ferry from here to downtown Seattle.  It is a great ride,especially in the summer.

 Here is the view from our table.

 This is a World War 2 Destroyer called Turner Joy.  It is available for tours.  The SBA has taken visitors on the tour.

They have recently redone this bridge.  The water you see is another one of the many inlets on Puget sound.

 This is still a view from the restaurant.  They are still skiing on week-ends in the Cascades where you find many ski resorts.  The mountains in this picture are the Olympics.  They are much wilder because they are part of the Olympic National Park.  There are very few roads in these mountains.

 Here is an update on "Penny America."  Now I just have to fill in the border squares and it will be back to John Foster.  I want to get this done quickly.  I had the test today and I do have moderate carpel tunnel so minor surgery is in my near future.  I'm sure that will slow down my stitching for hopefully no more than a few weeks. I'm happy to have it done as my hand is quite a pain in the neck right now.( Actually, a pain in the hand!)

In my last post, I showed pictures of the Dragonfly garden center.  Here is one of the plants that I couldn't live without. It is called Iris x pacifica "Baby Blanket".  The colors are just amazing.

The picture doesn't do this plant justice.  It is called Dark Chocolate Coleus.  It is an annual but I plan to put it in a pot with the chartreuse sweet potato vine.  It will be pretty on the deck.

Now I think you can see why I called this post a little bit of everything.  I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

The Lighthouse and a great garden center!

On Sat. we had the ribbon cutting to celebrate all the restorations that had been done to the lighthouse.  We received a grant from Historic Preservation a few years ago.  The lighthouse is well on it's way to appearing just as it did in the 1930's. This is the first lighthouse that was built on Puget Sound.  It was built in 1879.  It is truly a little historic gem.  The SBA(Super Blogging Assistant-he loads the photos) and I volunteer as docents 1 day every month from April to Oct.  Sat. was our day for May.  Between the celebration and the nearly perfect weather, we had quite a crowd, about 217 people.  We tell as much of the history as our guests want to hear!! It's lots of fun and you meet very nice people.  We took a short break between the ceremony and our duty time to go to a local plant nursery called Dragonfly.  This year they have added a little espresso stand.  Of course. I had to come home with a few plants.  I'll show them tomorrow.

Just before the ribbon cutting

The flags were so pretty with that lovely blue sky.

The new espresso stand has a growing roof!!

All the glorious plants!

The SBA needs to fortify himself for the tour at the lighthouse!

Garden Art!

Last but not least, I'd like to welcome my new followers.  Thank you so much for taking a look at my blog.  To the rest ,  I so appreciate the time you take to read this blog!!! I feel like you are my good friends! Have a great week!!!

A Tribute to Mother's Day!

I Hope you are all having a great day, Mothers or not!! It is so beautiful up here,  warm and sunny an absolutely perfect day!! Thanks for taking time to look at my blog ,I so appreciate it !  Today, I am showing a few of my samplers that I have done to honor people in my family.  I hope you enjoy seeing them. 

This sampler is "Margaret Harris" a Blackbird Design from the book Honeysuckle Manor. I put the names and birth dates of my Mother and my Maternal Grandmother on this sampler.  They were born in the same city so that was easy. I have so many wonderful memories of them both!

 Mom is Merna Kennedy and Grandma is Anna Lindquist. 

 I did this sampler a few years ago.  It is called "Emblem of Love."  It is by Ellen Chester at With My Needle.  (She has a great blog!!) I did this to celebrate our 32nd anniversary.  It has the initials of all our children and grandchildren stitched in the design. (We have 4 J's so that helped to give me room!)

This final one commemorates the wedding of  the SBA's Grandparents. It is"For Those Recorded Here" by Blackbird Designs. It is part of the Sarah Jane booklet.I never met his Grandmother who he called Boo.  But I have heard many stories about her.  She must have been a very special woman.