August 17, 2013
I THOUGHT we had the day off and enjoyed a bit of time in our own garden….
..and then I realized…horrors!…we had forgotten to deadhead at the Kite Museum yesterday, and Kite Festival guests and vendors would be starting to arrive on Sunday.
So off we went to work.
Allan photographed a sculpture on the lawn that would be auctioned off at the kite festival banquet.
Since we had had to go out anyway, we stopped by the Basket Case to pick up some more old potting soil for our compost pile.
Back in Ilwaco, I walked down to the Saturday Market for the weekly Discover Ilwaco photo session. I must admit I had gotten burned out on the weekly session because I was so involved in garden tour prep and touring. Allan had filled in for me a couple of Saturdays and Tom Hornbuckle had saved the day with some photos on the week when both Allan and I were off touring Gearhart gardens.
On the way, I passed the lost garden half a block away. The big hydrangea by Advent Street was in full blooms.
And it looked like some serious pruning might be going on….and the lawn, over a foot long last time I had noticed it this summer, had been roughly mowed.
I hope it doesn’t get too cleared out and lose its mysterious magic!
Here are some garden related photos from the day’s Ilwaco Saturday Market:
And with that, it’s time for Blues and Seafood‘s second day, this time started at 3:30 in the afternoon with a very bluesy band. I took photos and then went home till 5:15 when I returned for the amazing Strange Tones.
What the Strange Tones are doing at a blues festival, I don’t quite know. They are more rockabilly and have a backstory of being “sonic crime fighters” (thus they call their music Crime-a-billy). That is why you will see their two woman dance troupe, the Volcano Vixens, wielding spy glasses and toy guns. I simply adore this band.
We posted all our photos to Discover Ilwaco and were well chuffed when the band members liked them. Julie Strange herself commented about the above photo, “It’s nice to be so well protected while playing guitar!”
I like the number where they bring out parasols because it always makes for fun photos.
You can watch a video of this song, complete with parasols, here.
Jim is also a big fan and supporter of landscaping and gardens at the Port.
What could equal the Strange Tones performance? None but The Norman Sylvester Band, also from Portland.
Norman hails from Lousiana but has been playing in Portland, Oregon, since the mid 80s.
I loved it that LadyKat True Blue and Maggie Kitson, who had sung in The Heartbreakers the night before, were at the front of the audience enjoying the show.
I didn’t like the green tone that the lights cast sometimes, so changed some of those photos to sepia. It definitely suits the old fashioned Louisiana feel.
I think it especially suits the bassist who looks like he stepped out of another time.
Two years ago, Norman performed “People Get Ready” and I hope not to forget how it moved me. He has not played it here since and I wish he would. Even without it, I had a great time listening to all the other songs.
And then, an intermission.
The next band was headed by Coco Montoya who I guess is a famous blues guy. I took band photos for the page and then went outside and sat with a local acquaintance. The music was pleasant in the background while we sat and solved the problems of the world for awhile, or at least of our local world.
I was fairly pleased with the photos taken by my somewhat new camera, and was home with Allan downloading and editing and uploading them to the Ilwaco page until almost three in the morning, because I don’t like to fall behind on such things (as I have done with this blog!)