To round out this week devoted to the natural beauty around us I paid a visit to the tulip farm. It ain’t Keukenhof, the Dutch garden, but it ain’t shabby either. Jumping from puddle to puddle, dodging rain clouds, trying to argue with yet another shower threatening my camera, I had a grand time.

It’s still early, more than half of the fields not yet in bloom, and the place going to be open for almost another month. But the foliage alone was thrilling, and what was open did not disappoint.

Neither did the perennial viewing of humanity; some dressed to match the flowers, or at least their color;

some ignoring the weather and appearing in apparel more fitting for July;

some clutching their unicorns, or shivering in their cow mobile,

and the workers on break happy to rest those muddy limbs and heavy rain coats.

Did I mention it rained? It surely made for beautiful light. And it felt like spring, a riot of soft, muted color, and pastel air.

Some new sights,

and some names that made me smile.

My intention to post Sylvia Plath’s Tulip poem evaporated upon re-reading. It is just too depressing, written from hospital when she was undergoing surgery and on war-footing with those gorgeous flowers that disturbed the waxen peace of the ward. I will attach a link all the way at the bottom where she reads it herself only for those who need a dose of downward comparison.

It shall be William Wordsworth instead (and I just happened to photograph daffodils as well….):

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

So much dancing in that poem, so much dancing in my very own grateful heart from the joy that is spring in Oregon, dark skies or not.

And here is the perfect garden-in-the-rain music….