Every region of this beautiful planet has their treasured local festival and celebration. Spring is not officially Spring in Western Washington State without the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. This year marks the 26th year of this springtime icon. Over 700 acres are planted with daffodils, tulips and irises.
I had my ritual visit early this past Friday morning. The tulips are stunning. They speak for themselves. After a walk around the 3 acre show garden I decided to explore the barn on the property.
Barns are just cool.
I grew up seeing the old tobacco barns in southern Maryland. Growing up they were just old, now they are historic – the power of a few more years! I was pleased that the tulip farm I visited had not blocked off the barn to visitors. It is a real beauty with all the requisite barn features – a roof with holes in it, scattered farm equipment, resident birds and the glorious scent of grass and decomposition.
The bonus features were cracked old glass windows and a palette of moss and lichen colored walls. There was a small building added to the main barn with a white painted interior. There were old rusting shelves and tantalizing scuff marks on the wall under a large nail – certainly the ghost of jobs past.
Walking around this barn felt like the first chapter in a magic book – a story of romance, hardship and potential linking each of our lives. Family farming is our shared history. I was in no hurry to leave the valley Friday morning. Farm equipment hummed on nearly every plot of land. I stopped by an egg farm and purchased a dozen jumbo eggs for $2. I felt like a won a prize.
I hope your summer travels take you on a slower back road – just be sure to stop and buy some roadside fruit and vegetables. You get sunshine and history in every bite. Enjoy.
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I, too, grew up in southern Maryland (in the ’60s and ’70s). The years since have not been kind to the region. The cultural heritage has been paved over, the way of life quickly forgotten. Reminds me of the old Beatles song, In My Life.
We’re moving too fast.
I grew up in Southside Virginia, and tobacco barns weren’t just something to look at for me. I worked in them and in the fields around them. I’m not nearly so nostalgic, I guess, though there is a tiny bit of nostalgia there. For me, those barns represented dawn to dusk hours of backbreaking, mind-numbing labor, dehydration, bee stings, snakes whipping through the fields, and daily exhaustion. They were, and are, interesting to look at, though.
My wife grew up in a family that went to the Skagit Valley every year to look at the tulips. As a child, she thought of the place as “where they grow red and yellow.”
Thanks for the pics.
Barns do have a certain charm, no doubt. But I hear JS loud and clear. When I was a kid there wasn’t much romantic about barns or the activities that attended them.
The romantic eye is a lovely eye.
I love your eye even if history does not agree with its perspective.
Sam and JS – thank you both for rounding out the voice on barns. I spent some time yesterday trying to learn about this particular barn – and Skagit barns in general. I discovered lots of wonderful sites with photographic records of barns, but no one was telling their story. Their story is that hard work. The garden I visited has been owned by the current tenants since 1985. You know that barn is so much older. Generations have toiled on that land and in that barn. Europeans have been in the Skagit valley since the mid 1800′s and the first citizens so much longer. I learned yesterday that the valley produces seeds as a principle product. It is a major producer of cabbage, table beet, and spinach seed for the world. 90 to 100 percent of the U.S. supply of Chinese kale, Chinese cabbage, Chinese mustard, and Brussels sprout seed are also grown here.
And JS – please tell your wife what a wonderful comment about the red and yellow! I see how a child could think that.
Petey – I still have some family in Calvert County, and you aren’t kidding about the growth and destruction of that fragile ecosystem surrounding the Chesapeake Bay. It’s been too many years since I spent a summer crabbing on the Bay. Do they still have the Hard Shell Crab Derby at Crisfield?
Elaine – thanks. Those of us that come late to the story – like with this barn – may see it in an undeserved romantic light. I hope that it gets the barn noticed and reminds us all the debt we owe to these hardworking family farmers. Bee stings, snakes, sweat and tired toil all.
Lovely photographs, Dawn. Thank you.
Is that Tiny Tim tip toeing through the tulips in that first picture?
Dawn:
Well, I’ve met the snakes in Washington State, and they’re pretty unimpressive lot. Small, slow, and harmless. Every self-respecting snake I know would cringe at being described that way
.
Still, they’re a nice lot, and since it’s cold and damp there a good deal of the time, they love to curl around your arm and snuggle. I like them. But snakes?
Please.
Gorgeous. All of it.
Beautiful images. Thank you.
Everyone – thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed the flowers and the barn.
JS – I think we only have two snakes in western Washington state – the Garter and the Rubber Boa – and yes not a fierce creature in the bunch. I saw a Garter snake this weekend actually. Eastern Washington is another matter – it’s hot over there, excellent for snakes.
Ubertramp – leave it to you to catch the one person in the pictures. I purposely got to the farm early to avoid the hordes. I sooo didn’t want them in my pictures. My only other shot with Mt. Baker in the background also had the school bus they used to bring the immigrant labor to pick the tulips. Tiny Tim was less obtrusive than the bus.