Saturday, 10 March 2018
We left home today in plenty of time to stand in line at the annual Empty Bowls event, yet for some reason (obsession?) I decided we should have a look at the Shelburne garden first. We did find a big piece of cardboard along the fence, scrawled with something like “Please help, anything helps”, must be from the older man who holds the sign at the opposite corner sometimes. But when we got to
Empty Bowls,
I remembered the benefit of being early, which is getting in early to get the best bowl.
I was lucky to get a bowl with snowdrops on it….I was after one I had seen online with my favourite flower, narcissus, but someone snagged it just as I saw it. (The person who created that one called the flowers “jonquils”, a sweet old fashioned name.)
Here is the pretty bowl I was lucky to get—the last one with flowers! I think the flowers represented are snowdrops.
Whatever bowl one gets, the event is for a good cause. For the price of your bowl, you get delicious soup, a choice from various local restaurants (served in a plain white bowl, not your brand new pretty bowl). The proceeds go to support local food banks for the poor.
I had my favourite local soup, the tomato with bleu cheese from the Forty Second Street Café.
After soup, we continued working our way through the spring clean up list in Long Beach, starting with the pond at the NE corner of Bolstad and Pacific. We were lucky, on a sunny Saturday, to get a parking spot next to the pond. I was trying to rubber band my hair and each band, hanging on a hook on the dashboard in the sun, broke. Fortunately, I was able to go next door to my favourite shop, NIVA green, where owner Heather helped me out.
NIVA green (New, Inspired, Vintage, Artful)
Long Beach
The pond at Bolstad and Pacific, known as The Heron Pond, has its own webcam. I missed Allan’s perilous journey across the waterfall to clip ferns. Once again, he did NOT fall in on camera.
Allan’s photos:
I wish with my whole heart that whoever originally planted this garden (not us!) had not planted pernicious salal. It is rooted all under the rocks and impossible to eliminate. What a shame. It could be so much better.
The town and the road to the beach were bustling on this nice day. With the pond garden done, we went to the Bolstad beach approach to weed.
Allan got a telephoto of the kites:
We finished weeding the easternmost big section where Allan had cut the rugosa roses to the ground.
When we dumped our debris, we picked up some buckets of soil….
…and used them to mulch the garden strip in the northeast quadrant of Fifth Street Park, which sorely needed it…..
…and finished the work day with some weeding on the other side of Fifth Street park, where we found a suspicious package.
The bag was tucked in under some roses. Because of the recent bomb found near downtown, we had to call it in to the police, even though we had learned that the second bag found in Long Beach a couple of days after the initial homemade bomb was a harmless suspicious package. After our late afternoon call today, the officer came quickly, and pulled it out with a stick. He said something like “I know what an I.E.D. looks like, and this isn’t one.” It was so strange to hear “I.E.D” (improvised explosive device) in Long Beach. It turned out to be a bag full of sodden clothing that smelled a bit poopy.
I threw them out, feeling bad for whoever stashed them there, but….they need to find a better hiding place.
Tam from the Herb N Legend Smoke Shop was getting on a walk with a pal.
home
When we got home, look who was sleeping in my Go Bag.
Many locals here keep “go bags” by a window or door, handy to grab if one has to get out because of a tsunami. A big earthquake would, some experts say, give us about fifteen minutes to get to high ground. Fortunately, we live a two minute walk (or five minute hobble or who knows how long if a road was collapsed) from a hill. My bag is pretty haphazardly packed. At least it has a book, reading glasses, and headache pills.
I was able to erase one section of beach approach and the pond garden from the work board.
Oh, the gardens are looking nice! One of these years I am going to make it to the Empty Bowls event!!!!!
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I do hope so! I always fantasize that you will move here, even to the point of wanting to buy a house for you (although that is a bit beyond my altruistic reach 😉
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I just discovered through an article in our local paper that there is an empty bowls event (which I missed) in Enumclaw. Maybe next year, or some future year, I’ll make it there, cause yours always looks interesting. There’s an excellent restaurant in Sumner that does tomato soup with blue cheese, the first time I ever had it there, yum!
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Oh, do; it would be good blog fodder!
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I wonder if all empty bowls events are in March….it is a nationwide thing.
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The Empty Bowls for food banks is a lovely idea to encourage people to remember that many folks are going hungry and need help. I thought your choice was excellent.
The kite festival looks so springtime cheery, as does pic of Skooter reminding you to update your go bag.
Had to be scary to find something suspicious. Stay safe!
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Thank you! I have decided the bomb thing, while serious, was a tempest in a teapot…I hope.
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What a lovely terrier.
I am very pleased not to live where a go bag is necessary even if it does make a good bed for a cat.
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You are wiser in your choice of abode!
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Nice choice of a bowl! That looks like fun. Thank you to Alison for letting me know about the Enumclaw Empty Bowls, just a half hour drive away from Lake Tapps. I love reading about your daily garden adventures, Skyler–did you ever think you would be checking for possible bombs?
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I never thought I’d be checking for bombs here. So far there was just the one so I hope it was a solitary event.
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How nice that there are fund raisers even in small towns like yours. We happen to be near a larger town where there is an active hate group that vilifies the poor.
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That is just terrible about the hate group. We have a fairly low wage average here so there is perhaps more sympathy for the poor than in some places.
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Santa Cruz and Santa Clara County are two of the least livable counties in America. Many here who live in poverty earn very good income. Hate is not ‘really’ about poverty. Hate is about hate. Since it is no longer acceptable to burn witches or lynch black people, the poor and homeless have become targets.
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