May on the Sound...

We have turned the corner on spring now. It's a little chilly (mid-30 degree range) in the mornings yet, but edging into the 60s reliably during the day. Everything is fresh and green. We visited a lovely nursery last weekend and brought home a pink dogwood tree, a rhododendron with yellow flowers striped with a dark orange, and a few small plants for the garden. There was so much to see that we didn't get through half of it and will return for another visit. We are hoping to get the tree and the rhody in the ground today. We picked up the horse manure last weekend and some of it has been tilled into one of the vegetable garden beds. The rest is waiting to go into the other two once they have been cleared of rocks and are tillable. But we have some peas planted. That's a start. John has been challenged to mow the yard/meadow/jungle clearing because it is still very wet in many places.

We did, in fact, go dancing last weekend and had a fun time meeting some new folks and just creating chaos on the dance floor. If only we could remember the steps that we practice so diligently in class once we are on our own! Oh well. The band was very good. Our dance class is having a "graduation party" after the last class in this cycle in 2 weeks time. We've signed up to go again.

Yesterday we went by ferry into Seattle and walked over to Qwest Stadium to watch the Seattle Sounders play the LA Galaxy (that's soccer, or football to my international friends). There were 36,000 in attendance, some fireworks, flyovers, confetti, a band, a "crazies section"; all the necessary things I guess. The club is well-supported up here and it seems to be what baseball once was for families and accessible sporting events. Oh yeah, they lost 4-0 to LA (who are the leading team in the west). We are going to watch the local club (the Kitsap Pumas) next and see what we think.

Today we are going into the burg to visit the Marine Science Center. There are many local things of interest that are on my list of "places to see and do" now. Another one is the Grover's Creek Salmon Hatchery that is run by the Suquamish tribe. It's literally just down the road. After we visit the Center, we'll try out the newly opened ice cream shop in town so I can report back :-)

Lastly, we have 4 hummingbirds frequenting the feeder on the front porch these days. They are very interesting to watch as they maneuver around and with each other. And they are very tiny compared to the ones we had in California. At the other end of the bird spectrum, John saw another bald eagle this week and lovely red-tailed hawk doing a lazy flyover. Looking forward to what the new week will bring...