Bashful

One of the dahlia varieties at Swan Island Dahlia Farm in Canby, Oregon.

Patchwork

View down the rows at the dahlia farm in Canby, Oregon.
Walking down the long aisle between rows
was so much fun...a seemingly never-ending variety of dahlias!

The Road Less Traveled

View to the other side of the road from last week's post.  I'm getting a little behind on the blog, between finishing up the calendar and getting my garden planted.  I've got a little backlog of photos though, so hope I can catch up on posting this week and next.  As far as the photo, I was in Trout Lake looking for a particular herb farm that I visited earlier this spring.  I remembered it was on Glenwood Rd., and when I saw the sign for BZ-Glenwood Hwy I thought that was it.  Multiple times I felt like I was on a new road, and yet I kept going because I was just sure Glenwood was right.  After a while I was quite sure I'd made a wrong turn, but it was just so pretty that I continued down the road and decided to visit the herb farm on my next visit (which will be on Friday). All these yellow flowers, plus the camas growing along the edge of the road, line an area signed Conboy Lake Wildlife Refuge. We didn't plan for a trip through a wildlife refuge, and our dog Clover was in the car.  So I'm thinking that if I have time, I'll visit the herb farm and check out the refuge when I'm back in Trout Lake later this week. 

Canola, or Maybe Mustard

I have to admit, I can't really identify any of the plants that grow in the Palouse.  It's not like the Midwest where I grew up, corn and soybeans are pretty easy to tell apart.  I don't know wheat from lentils.  I initially assumed that this yellow flowering crop was canola, but I read online that canola and mustard are hard to tell apart to the untrained eye.  I also read that if you plant one of these crops in a field than you can never plant the other, because they cross to form a plant known as rapeseed, which is evidently a very unwelcome crop.  When I was in the Palouse last week I wandered through the Moscow Farmer's Market, and there was a vendor selling something I believe he called Canolina Oil, which was made from a mustard seed, but not the same as the mustard oil you would find at an ethnic grocery.  I tried some and thought it tasted delicious!  He had a lot of statistics and data worked up by the WSU campus to show all the health benefits, but I was a little skeptical on how well it would store given that he compared it against flax oil which oxidizes so quickly.  Anyway, that's my wishy-washy experience with this yellow flowering crop, whatever it is.  Not exactly my most definitive post!  :)

Out In the Field

I visited Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm later in the morning when the light was getting too bright for photography, but I had pretty good luck with these rows of red and white tulips; I'm not sure why, but the light doesn't look too harsh in these photos.  Yesterday's was taken from the opposite direction, with the sun almost directly facing the red flowers, while in today's photo the flowers are backlit. I think this photo really shows the state of the field, with some rows in bloom and others preparing.   One thing I learned about tulip fields that really surprised me is that they dig up the bulbs every year and replant them in the fall, rotating locations of the different varieties to help with disease, insects, erosion, etc. and they cut all flowers before any petals drop, also to prevent disease. There were lots of workers in the field when I was there on Monday. I just never considered the extent to which tulip field maintenance is a year round job!  

Queen Anne's Lace

We're not moved in yet; still in temporary quarters, but starting to settle in a little and explore the Portland area.  Today we found a running trail with plenty of Queen Anne's lace along the edges. Technically a weed, Queen Anne's lace is one of my favorite "flowers" because it reminds me of childhood summers in Indiana. 

April 19

It's funny to me that this is the photo I decided on because it really wasn't anything I was working on, but just a quick photo to try to identify what this is. It grows in a marshy area. Any ideas, Dad?

Anyway, the color is just so nice on it. I can't believe it's so muted in the background at f/8, but I guess it's because I had my telephoto lens on. I had to get pretty far away before the camera would even focus on the flower...I was probably 4-5 feet from the flower.