Art in the Garden at the BBG: The Art

One of our favorite gardens to visit is the public garden at the Bellevue botanical Garden. It is even more fun when they stage their late summer garden art show. We joined our Joyful Gardeners group for a meet up there on Saturday.

The late summer gardens were wonderful, but the art was pretty cool too. 

This is called glass quilting, and is made with beads and glass laid on old window glass and then secured with resin. 

Enameled metal birds. 

We love Peter Godwin's Forest Green Enterprises creations and have purchased a few smaller pieces in the past. 

Saturday we bought this guy, Hop Man. Pricey, but we called it Tom's birthday present, even though that isn't until October. 

Sprinklers that twirl.

Rusty metal.

Wire creations. 

 Fused glass lanterns.

 Kokedama, a Japanese form of bonsai where root balls are wrapped in twine and moss. 

 Wonderful wire cages for plants. We talked to the husband and wife team that makes them. they live on Whidbey Island, where we have seen their creations at the chocolate flower Farm shop in Langley. 

 Metal sculpture

 Glass sculpture

 Beautiful ceramic tiles.

 And our other purchase.

It was hard to pay attention to the art at times, because the garden was the star of the show. I'll show that next. 

Our Beach Trip, Part 2

Wednesday was overcast again, still with smoke. We left the cabin about 9:30 to go to the bakery in Garibaldi, which we hoped would be open. Alas, it was not, so we found another coffee shop and had lattes and a poor substitute Danish. Since the weather was mild, we decided to prowl around Garibaldi a bit, in our usual haunts. 

We visited the elderly gentleman who makes the wonderful stainless steel windspinners, like the one we have. He asked us for a photo of ours with snow on it, and I just found such a photo and emailed it to him. 

Then we walked on the fishing docks, watched a charter boat unloading their catch and talked to a fisherman who was selling tuna from his boat. I asked him a few questions. He had to go 125 miles out to sea for his catch.

One antique shop was open and I had fun looking at every little thing. I found a bundle of three yards of a quality quilting fabric for $8, which I bought. I plan to entertain myself with fun sewing projects this winter. 

Then we stopped at the north jetty of Tillamook Bay. There were quite a few fishermen out in the channel, and the gulls seemed to be resting. The surf was moderate, but it is always fun to watch the rollers break.

We had several brown pelican flyovers.

We spent a lot of time reading. I did my exercises every day, but did very little beach walking. I'm having a lot of trouble doing much extended walking these days, and beach walking is especially hard on my legs. 

We did go out to dinner Wednesday evening, to a little place in Rockaway Beach with a reputation of having a very good chef. Our food was great, sauteed oysters for Tom, Creole shrimp with polenta for me. Back at the cabin we finished off the ice cream.

Thursday morning we tried the Garibaldi Bakery again, but it was still closed. The elderly couple that own it are having some health problems, so I don't know how much longer it will be in business. It's a shame.

So we tried a little bakery right in Rockaway Beach, and found they had lattes, and the most wonderfully flaky apple turnovers and lemon curd Danish. Sorry, no food photos of these places. 

 Smoke on, smoke off, sun shine or clouds, it was always pleasant enough to enjoy the beach. 

Back at the cabin we cleaned and packed. I went for a short walk. We read and had lunch, using up food I wouldn't have to pack back home. We left at 1:00, stopped in Wheeler to explore a favorite antique mall, and then drove back country roads for hours to get to my sister Laurie's house for dinner and a visit. We left there full of good food, and with crops from their garden: English cucumbers, green beans, and pears. 

It was about 10:30 when we rolled into our driveway, and as we opened the car door we were greeted with the strong odor of wood smoke. It seems we missed the two clear days they had and the smoke had rolled back in.

Since then we have had breakfast with friends, shopped for groceries, picked our crops, including a big basket of tomatoes.

We spent three hours Saturday morning at the Bellevue Botanical Garden Art in the Garden show with our gardening group. There will be lots of photos for more posts to come. Saturday evening we went to the movies, and saw Crazy Rich Asians. It was fun watching all of the extravagance.

Now we will settle in at home and work on eating healthily, lots of vegetables, and try to lose those pounds we put on by eating forbidden food on our vacation.