Flowery Field Trip

 

SPYING IRISES: Midday Saturday we took a quick field trip to a place just a couple of blocks to our north, Leonine Iris. We'd noticed the place on walks through the neighborhood shortly after moving here almost 4 years ago. We'd admired their smallish front yard, which is packed with Pacific Northwest irises. Little did we know, that's just a small part of their collection, which runs through both side yards and encompasses their entire backyard, as well.

Thanks to a post on Nextdoor, we learned that every Saturday in May, Leonine Iris has open garden tours, so we stopped by for a visit.

A slice of the back yard, looking back toward the house.

According to their website,  www.leonineiris.com, their primary focus is on Pacific Coast Iris, "although we grow a significant representation of all other types of iris as well. Our ultimate goal is to create a living archive to preserve as many of the older Pacific Coast Iris hybrids as possible. We currently grow over 350 named PCI hybrids, along with many as yet unregistered seedlings, and are constantly seeking to expand the collection."

There were labels next to each iris. Apologies that I didn't get photos of them. You'll just have to guess what kind each of these are. ;) That, or go to Leonine Iris' website, where they have photos and labels for most all of their irises. 

I like the edge of the petals on this one. 

Check out these almost black buds!

Such strange flowers!

Annabelle amidst the irises, in one corner of the back yard.

I love how the veins on this iris pop. (I realize they're probably not called veins, but I'll be you know what I mean.)

The one below almost looks like a pair of eyes, a mouth, and a fancy nose.

There were so many bumblebees in the gardens! Bumblebees must really love irises.

The next two have colors of a sunrise or sunset.

Pretty spectacular.

Lots of pinks and purples in the gardens.

I thought it funny that the iris below is called "Oregon Watercolor" when it's Washington Husky colors.

Some of my favorite flowers in the garden weren't even irises. Check out these cute little blossoms on the Kalmia shrub. They kind of look like candy to me. 

I figured I *had* to include a photo of one of the irises growing in our yard. Another interesting blend of purple and yellow/gold on one flower. I have to wonder if whoever planted it was a Husky fan. 

FAMILIAR FACE: On Thursday morning, we watched par of a hearing by the House Natural Resources Committee. The Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States, led by Chair Teresa Leger Fernández, was hosting a legislative hearing on the RESPECT Act and STOP Act. The two bills require the federal government to engage in meaningful consultation with federally recognized tribes to prohibit the export of sacred Native items and increase the penalties for illegal trafficking. The hearing was of interest for more than one reason. FIrst, preserving Native artifacts is an important topic, second because CJ is studying Native Americans in his current Pacific Northwest History class, and third, my cousin Lauren van Schilfgaarde, an attorney and who is a member of the Cochiti Pueblo tribe, was testifying. It was interesting to hear about the bills and the work being done on this matter. You can see the hearing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP8lSl7n1is

FEEDING TEENS: This Saturday was the fourth of the month, so for us, that meant prepping a whole lot of food for Teen Feed. 

The menu was inspired by a summer picnic: Fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni salad, baby carrots with ranch dip, and a choice of strawberry shortcake or Oreo chocolate mousse.  (I suspect some guests had both kinds of dessert.)

CJ and Annabelle helped, of course. CJ cut 15 cups of strawberries. 

Annabelle helped fill over 90 little ramekins with ranch, for dipping carrots in.

We fired up the Flair and baked up about 80 shortcakes, including gluten free and vegan options.  

We picked up 196(!) pieces of chicken from a store in White Center. You can imagine how my car smelled after driving around for about 45 minutes with that much fried chicken on board.  

The dinner went well, and before long we'll be thinking about a menu to serve for next month. 

PARTING SHOT: Kirby, living her best life. And this is *after* the haircut, I kid you not. 

Memorable Day

Another Birthday Dreams cake out the door. The birthday boy wanted a shark cake. This one took a bit, as - believe it or not - we'd never carved a shark from Rice Krispies treats before.

After a couple of starts and stops, Sharky finally started to take shape.

To be honest, it still looked nothing like a shark after the Krispies were shaped.

He started looking a little better with the white fondant underside in place.

Naturally, a number of teeth had to be made. We couldn't send out a gummy shark.

Here's an action shot of Annabelle inserting the eyes (big black gumballs) and making 'gills'.

CJ made the cake. It was vanilla covered in an ocean of vanilla buttercream, applied to look wavy. We knew we'd use the little goldfish sprinkles some day, and yesterday was the day. Some white nonpareils were added to evoke bubbles in the water.

Sharky looks a little goofy from the front.

He's much more attractive in profile. :)

The final touch was putting the 7-year-old birthday boy's name on the cake board (that's not shown here for anonymity). 

OH NO-NO:  It was cold, and thundershowers were hanging in the sky in every direction. Seems like a perfect night to go to a baseball game, right? 

Wrong. 

But we went anyway. And we got to see a little history made, unfortunately. The Mariners didn't get a single hit against the guy who was the worst starting pitcher in baseball in 2019. 

We started the game in our usual seats - last row of the stadium, up from the left field foul line.

Things are a little different at the park these days. Bags are banned, there's hand sanitizer everywhere, most are wearing masks, seating is mostly socially distanced (except in vaccinated fans' sections).

They're giving COVID-19 vaccines on site, in multiple places. 

From our seats on high, we could see down into the Edgar's Cantina part of the park, where vaccines were being administered. It didn't go well for one poor guy. He would up surrounded by medics, got an IV and a gurney was brought out. Fortunately he was able to leave on his own two feed after a bit of recovery. 

We brought our COVID-19 immunization cards with us. That earned us nifty wristbands.

Those gained us access to the "T-Mobile" bullpen area of the stadium. We headed down there about midway through the game.

We found a spot to stand near the Mariners' bullpen. I was wishing I could have swiped some of their tools for the dogs to have as toys. ;)

One pitcher hooked up to the fence right by us and started warming up.

The Ms' bullpen pitchers were watching the Detroit pitcher pitch a gem. And probably wondering why the Mariners can't hit the *&^% ball.

Unfortunately, the blue plastic pitching practice batter had about as good of a chance of hitting the ball as a real live Mariners player.

I had actually mentioned the no-hitter-in-progress to the kids way back in the third inning. I had a bad feeling about the game. The Ms 'hitters' looked nowhere near making solid contact, and the last game we went to was similarly abysmal (but I think they managed a hit or two in that one). 

I was going to say, seeing a no-hitter in person is really rare for a baseball fan, but hell, the Mariners have been no-hit TWICE in less than two weeks this season. Ugh.  (Photo is a cool new mural in the bullpen area.)

Until Spencer Turnbull beat the Kansas City Royals in his previous start, he had exactly ONE career win against an American League team in his career. In fact, Turnbull 'lead' the Majors with 17 losses in 2019, and entered the Tuesday night game against the Ms with a 9 win, 25 loss record for his career. 

Below is a view of mine, staring up at the scoreboard, knowing that a no-hitter was basically a given at that point. (Zoom in and look at some of the Ms' batting averages.)

The internet tells me there is a 1 in 806 chance you will see a no-hitter in person when you go to a game. I guess I was coming up due, given I've been going to multiple games per year for  many decades at this point. 

Here's the last out from our vantage point. https://youtu.be/aWMqvysG3E0

Out and About

T-TOWN BOUND: Last Friday, we made a midday trip down to Tacoma for a tour of CJ's future campus. We'd strolled the grounds before, but had never been inside any of the buildings and didn't have a tour guide.

This time we did have an official guide with access to some of the buildings. We met at the Mattress Factory at noon.

It was nice to learn where offices are that CJ will likely have to visit (advising, the registrar, etc.)

We spied numerous spots on campus where students can hang out.

One bulletin board that caught CJ's eye was the study abroad board. He asked lots of questions. Makes sense a history major might want to check out another country or two.

The architecture is interesting on campus. Lots of old buildings repurposed over the years.

The grounds were beautiful, with so many things in bloom.

One of the things we learned on the tour is that Tacoma's W statue is the biggest out of any UW locations, and it's not just about bragging rights. We were told the statue is a safety barrier of sorts, as once upon a time a city bus hit black ice and slid all the way downhill through the middle of campus. The big ol W would stop a repeat of that. 

BACK IN BEES-NESS: Sadly, our bees did not winter over, despite doing all the right things (making sure they had plenty of food, treating them for mites and insulating the hives).

I couldn't imagine a season without bees, so I found a "nuc" (a nucleus colony) on Craigslist. A trip to Federal Way and $200 later, and we're back in business.

While Christian was loading up the nuc, I watched bees land on our sunroof and pluck pollen off of wisteria blossoms.

After a little jaunt up Interstate 5, the bees have a new home.

As you can see, they have plenty of blossoms at the new place.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: We had company over for dinner last night.

That might not sound like such a remarkable thing, but 14 months into a worldwide pandemic, with so much isolation during the lockdowns, it was a huge departure.

I kept the menu simple. Rib eye steaks from Costco, garlic and Parmesan fingerling potatoes cooked in a cast iron pan and prosciutto wrapped organic asparagus.

CJ did a great job helping prepare the beautiful asparagus.

First, the spears were washed and trimmed. Next, prosciutto was laid out on the cutting board, and cut in half lengthwise. Atop that was a sprinkle of Parm, black pepper, and since lemon zest.

The spears were wrapped with the prosciutto and popped under the broiler for about 2.5 minutes per side (5 total).

They were absolutely delicious!!!

Here's a super short video showing the prep process.

Good Stuff

FRONDLY: Sunday was Mother's Day, and I was gifted a palm tree by Christian. It's only about four feet tall now, but some day, it could grow to 30 feet or so. It's still in its pot, which made it just tall enough for me to sit under for a few moments on sunny Monday. I pretended I was in the tropics for a bit. Christian joined me for a few. 

But to be honest, it wasn't too relaxing. There was a pair of little birdies who really didn't want us relaxing right there. They were keeping their beady eyes on us and got closer and closer. We figured they had a nest nearby. 

They were persistent so we got out of their hair - or feathers.

In other yard action, we are relocating the bee hive to our west yard that's full of clover. We discovered a couple of months ago that our bees didn't winter over, unfortunately. We're not sure what happened. The hive was well insulated and we had treated for mites.

What was really surprising was when Christian was taking it apart to move it, he didn't find a bunch of bee corpses in it. Somehow, they're all gone. We have to think something got into the hive and was a grave robber, because bee bodies wouldn't just disappear on their own. 

While cleaning the hive, Christian found a couple of huge honeycombs our dearly departed honeybees had built. Pretty impressive.

The weird ol' irises continue to pop up around the yard. They'll be gone as quickly as they came. Many of them are looking past-their-prime already.

In other random news, I have to park this link here: https://www.cameo.com/v/6087866ee9c065001d586bb7?utm_campaign=video_share_to_copy

It leads to my Mother's Day present from Rick and Ken, a personal video from Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-Wee Herman. 

I've been a fan of his since the early 1980s, when he used to appear on the David Letterman Show regularly. When I was very pregnant with Rick (in 1985), I went to see "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" in the theater and I laughed so hard, I thought I might go into labor. 

When Rick had a Halloween costume wedding, Christian and I dressed up as characters from that movie. I played Pee-Wee, who happened to be dressed as a woman in one scene, when he and Mickey, a convict, we trying to elude the police. (It strikes me I still have that turquoise sweater somewhere ...)

About the last public thing Christian, Annabelle, CJ, Kennedy and I did before the lockdown was go see Paul Reuben's one man show at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. He was charming, and it was downright poignant in parts. 

Anyway, what a funny, thoughtful gift, Rick and Ken gave me. 

SIGNED UP: Today was the first day new students could sign up for classes at Bellevue College for Fall 2021. That's when Annabelle is eligible to start Running Start (college as a high school-aged student), and so we were ready to pounce on that opportunity.

In doing some research, we learned the site would go live at 6 a.m., so by 5:59 this morning we were at her computer, ready to strike.

The early bird got the worm. Annabelle got the Japanese II class she was after (it's a tough seat to get, we were told). She also signed up for an intro to psychology class (potentially her major some day), and an English class.

I have to say, the website she was on to sign up looked like it was from the 1980s. Right after she registered, it crashed, hard. Fortunately, I think she's OK, as I do have an emailed receipt for paying her fees for the quarter. 

Now, the big question is will classes be in person or not? Time will tell. ...

Annabelle went back to bed after registering. I was way too awake, so I got a couple hours of work done while being flanked by a pair of snoring Havanese. 

FALLOUT: CJ is working hard in his World Cinema class. There's a lot to read, watch, and write. In hopes of getting a solid A, he's also doing extra credit. Recently he prepared this infographic talking about the impact of COVID on the film industry.

I hope you're able to read it. I tried to make it as big as I could. It might help to click on the individual images.