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Saturday, June 5, 2010

A Grand Day Out: Gratituesday


Today I'm linking up with Laura at Heavenly Homemakers for Gratituesday. If you get the chance, visit some of the other participants to find out what they're grateful for today!

We've recently moved to northern Washington and have been excited to explore the surroundings.A couple of weeks ago, my husband planned a fun day out for our family.

We began at the Washington State University Discovery Garden in Mount Vernon. What was estimated to be about a 20 minute jaunt around a few paths turned out to be a 2 1/2 hour stroll through garden upon garden! It was beautiful! There are way too many pictures to post and too much to tell so I'll just include a few highlights!  

I thought the most interesting plant was this giant rhubarb. I know it looks big in the picture but I'm telling you...this thing was HUGE! It was seriously three feet tall! I don't think they grow 'em like that in eastern Oregon???
There was a special garden just for children where Selah and Lynzie posed with some favorite story book characters.
Alice, The Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts were all hiding in the bushes.  
Elisha was really excited to find what he thought was a beehive. (Although he called it a "bee hind"). Turns out, it was just a storage box for hoses...but I couldn't convince him so we got a picture in front of the "bee hind".

I thought it was really neat that they had a little bit of everything and that there was something for everyone. There were rose gardens, herb gardens, areas specific to fruit plants and others for vegetables. There was a veteran's memorial and a children's garden. We got a little turned around in a thicket of trees and even saw a frog in a pond in the "native to Washington area".

One part of the garden that I thought was especially useful was a pavilion that featured several gardening ideas for the handicapped. There was a big display that showcased lots of different gardening tools to aid those who need a little help in gardening. There were also displays to show creative ways to allow those with impairments to enjoy the plants and soil too. For instance, there was a little garden planted in a high, table-like planter for the visually impaired:

There was also a display of a garden built into a planter with seating all around it so someone who was not able to stand or bend could sit on the edge and work in his or her garden:  
My favorite display of all was the Espalier trained apple tree!  You can read more about Espalier training here but the picture should give you a pretty good idea what they've done. Can you imagine having your apple tree grow out along your fence? So awesome!  
After an "interesting" lunch in the car (I grabbed the peanut butter and bread but forgot a knife...Jamie had to spread it on with a pocket knife while I was feeding the baby!), we headed out to Whidbey Island to take some pictures.

We eventually ended up in a little town called Coupeville and found a park where Jamie stopped so the kids could play and I could feed the baby. Jamie put flowers in my hair:

Then he found a trail that we walked down to a little beach just the right size for us!
There we found lots of sea shells and skipped some rocks.
It was a really great day and the best part of all was that we spent it together!

1 comment:

  1. What a great time. So beautiful!
    That tree training was VERY interesting. I'm going to consider trying that some day.

    ReplyDelete

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Mrs. Sarah Coller

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