Lavender is in the air...

It's that time of year again on the Olympic Peninsula... the weekend of the Lavender Festival. (The link will tell you all about it.)

Lavender in bloom on the Olympic Peninsula a few weeks ago...

But it's been drier than usual, so some of the lavender growers have already started harvesting some of their crop because it doesn't do to have the flowers come to a fuller bloom too soon.

Still, there's plenty of the purple haze and smell to satisfy the tourists.

Last year I planted my own lavender bush and because I moved in January, the transfer of the bush did not go well. It needed to go into the ground earlier rather than later, but I think it will survive and maybe next year it will have the intensity of its neighbors.

Protection Island in Washington State, in the Strait of Juan
de Fuca, in the mouth of Discovery Bay, near Sequim.

This weekend, there's dinner cruise to Protection Island, a national wildlife refuge, to see the local marine birds. Some of the funds paid for the trip will support the local Audubon Society. I have been wanting to get out there since I moved to this area, so I'm hopeful this may be one of the nicest photo journeys I've been on in awhile.

Close up of the lavender flower, a wonderful scent, if you
aren't allergic to it, which I know some folks are.

The island is one of two of the local nesting places for the Tufted Puffin, and as one of my birder followers (Margaret in Italy) knows, these are interesting and an endangered species.

It's likely the weather is going to continue to be dry and warm, but I'm going to be prepared for the coolness that being on the water at dusk brings.

A good friend is moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a couple of weeks. She was one of the first people who befriended me when I arrived in Sequim, and it will be hard to not have her living nearby.  I completely get the reasons for her move, and people move in and out of our lives all the time, in one way or another. But I don't have to like it, do I?