Red

Red.

The color of joy...

 

Shade of celebration.

And I'm celebrating!

 

Can you tell I've got a new Nikon to replace the poor broken one?

Can you tell how hungry I was for a real camera again?

Mr. Wonderful surprised me with the camera of my dreams

and the thick manual is on my bedside table,

perfect night time reading.

Fields of tulips dance before my eyes at night as I learn the technicalities...

Yipee!!!

Tulips

I hope nobody minds another post about the flowers.
Maybe the perfume from the blooms is making me a little giddy but I can't resist the eye candy.

Skagit Valley is carpeted with tulips, looking like Holland in the spring, and it's gone to my head again this year.

Even the reflections in the muddy rows shine with beauty.

 

 

 

Nobody minds the mud, and the trucks carry blossoms picked by workers whose singing can be heard across the fields in the early morning.

Workers bunch the stems and tuck them under burlap in the wooden boxes that dot the fields.

We locals can't get over how amazing it is that we actually get to call this valley home.

Click here for a very short video of Sharyn sketching in the tulip fields.

Truly this is a splendid place, a rare gift, a fleeting blessing like spring itself.

Tulip time

Every spring it's wow.

Every. Single. Spring.

Every year I say it's the best ever.

 

And it's true.

 

Spring.

If there is anything more lovely this side of heaven,

I can't imagine what it could be.

 

Spring… a rainbow of color

After a long grey winter the burst of spring color is a happy jolt.

Our little valley is again a brilliant carpet

and I'm cycling at every possible moment.

The studio moves outdoors…

There's a plastic box strapped to the back of my bike and taken into the fields.

Truly there is no place like home, 

especially when you live in Washington's rural Skagit Valley.

Home felt like a little piece of heaven today.