Rhody, rhody, rhody

Oh, my gosh, the rhododendron’s are popping like popcorn.

The Rhody Run is coming up. https://runsignup.com/Race/WA/PortTownsend/JeffersonHeatlhcareRhodyRun

The Rhododendron Festival is also approaching like crazy.

https://www.jeffcountychamber.org/events/details/2023-annual-rhododendron-festival-1873

And our Sunrise Rotary Running of the Balls happens one hour before the Rhododendron Parade:

https://www.ptsunriserotary.org/page/our-fun-d-raiser-events

For Mother’s Day, my kids all called. My daughter sent tea and a card. A friend and I went to the Chimacum Woods Nursery and the rhododendrons there are mind blowing. They have been building the gardens there for over 40 years.

https://www.chimacumwoods.com/

For the next few weeks my flowers are going to be rhodys, rhodys and more beautiful rhodys!

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Gone wild

There must have been a garden here long ago
No house but a chicken coop still stands
Three rhodys gone wild: lush and gorgeous show
Taller than I can reach overhead with hands
Scattered daffodils, the deer don’t like them much.
No tulips, the deer eat them down to the ground.
Petunia purple faces spread through brush.
The deer are shy not like the herds in town
Who teach the fawns to cross at crosswalks during day.
They don’t like rhodys either so the trio grows
Untrimmed, untrammeled, untamed, without a stay
I wonder if there’s envy from wild roses
Wild roses thorn each inch to hide in brush,
while the rhodys climb like trees, flowering lush.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: lush and for Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Rhody

We are in the week of our annual Rhododendron Festival. A tricycle race on Wednesday, run by my Sunrise Rotary. The Bed Race, the Pet Parade. Today is the Rhody Run, but I wore my feet out yesterday, with the Running of the Balls (one of our big Rotary fundraisers) and then the Rhody Parade. I walked to Monroe Street at 9:30 am and was not done until 3:00 pm. My phone went dead, but another person’s recorded 16,000 steps. I iced my feet when I got home, up on pillows!

And the local rhododendrons are gorgeous. Are they narcissists? Or just joyful?

present

For the Daily Prompt: present.

Our Rhody Fest is in May, with the Grand Parade, tricycle races, the bed race, and my Sunrise Rotary “Running of the Balls”. But I took this photograph two days ago: this rhododendron is not going to wait for May. No time like the present and in full bloom in February and gorgeous. A touch, a promise, harbinger of spring!