Views of Sequim, the Olympic Peninsula. . .and beyond
Olympic Lavender Farm was sold to new owners last year and if I’m not mistaken it also has a new sign. The owners have two other lavender growing sites in the Dungeness area in addition to this five acre plot.
The Olympic Lavender farm is 19 years old and plans are afoot to plant thousands of additional lavender plants here this fall. Like many of our other farms, Olympic Lavender has a farm store and a variety of lavender products created with their organic blossoms.
Sequim’s annual Lavender Weekend begins this Friday and I looked around one of my favorite farms, Jardin du Soleil, last week. This was one of the first operations I visited before I moved to Sequim and I was taken by the beauty of the fields and the gorgeous setting. New owners took over the 10-acre farm a few years ago and the lavender looks great this year.
The fields here are beautifully laid out and the landscaping compliments it nicely. During the Lavender Weekend crafts and foods are sold at many of the lavender farms and farmers offer lavender-related demonstrations. Jardin du Soleil will demonstrate lavender distilling.
Like many other lavender growers Jardin du Soleil sells their lavender products, which are organic.
Mount Baker shows the tip of its peak in the distance in this shot.
The Tour de Dung bicycle race is an annual opportunity to try stuff with my camera that I haven’t done much since last year’s race. Sort of a very pressured, condensed tutorial. I call this collage “It’s All a Blur to Me.” Really, it’s intentional.
Yesterday was the annual Tour de Dung bicycle races. That’s “Dung” as in “Dungeness,” the region in Sequim where the races are held. This race is held annually to prove how ridiculously slow I am at photographing speeding bicycles. (Sorry to the many bicyclists who have shown up on my editing screen cut in half. I’m glad you haven’t seen yourselves.) Yeah, and there’s something about bikes and races and stuff.
This is the first of two weekend races. There will be more next Saturday as well.
Local drivers, please have a care – and patience, if necessary. The race is well organized and cars accompany racers. But there are a lot of bicyclists on the road, singles and in groups. Bicyclists appreciate your sharing the road. And, for my part, I didn’t like avoiding a head-on collision with a truck that was hell bent on passing a bicyclist on the shoulder.
This was one of my favorite action shots of 2013, filled with the horror of seeing an airborne horse over a rider who’d hoped to stay in the saddle, and amazement that the rider was able to dust himself off and walk away.
Last month as part of Native American Heritage Month, the local Elwha Klallam Tribe hosted a screening of a film called “More Than Frybread.” We’d not been to the Tribal Center, a beautiful building in Port Angeles, and the movie sounded like fun. It was – fun and very funny. A mockumentary on the first ever state frybread championship in Arizona, it profiled and followed contestants before and through the competition. The characters were all well drawn and well acted and the film was full of wry humor.
We love frybread and have great memories of finding a couple of frybread stands in very remote areas of the Southwest. There is nothing like fresh, hot frybread when you’ve been out camping for days and driving for hours in the high desert. That was some years ago and the thought of seeing it on film filled us with nostalgia. I can’t tell you how thrilled we were when our Elwha hosts announced before the film that a batch of frybread was out and ready to eat. Heaven! A great movie and frybread, too. Life is good.
The annual Festival of Trees was held last weekend in Port Angeles. It is the biggest fundraiser for our Olympic Medical Center and monies raised are used to purchase equipment and provide continuing education for staff.
The Festival of Trees is a big event supported by many local businesses. There are a number of events over the three day festival including a Teddy Bear tea for children and parents, a family breakfast, and family day viewings of festival trees. The centerpiece is the Festival of Trees Gala where decorated trees, many with bonus “premiums,” are auctioned at a formal gourmet buffet dinner. Details from some of the trees are shown above, lovely creations that are themed by local designers and sponsored by businesses and community members. This year roughly 50 trees were auctioned for well over $90,000. Premiums accompanying the trees included travel packages, wine, local services, sports and cultural events.