As I said below, the quarterly Chinook District meeting of the local garden clubs is just great. The best part for me, besides seeing people who have become friends, is the opportunity to photograph flowers, and great specimens at that. The dark red dahlia below was grown by yours truly and almost won best in show! Only almost, but still.

For more beautiful flowers around the world, visit Flowers For Today.

Oh, the last sunny days of summer. Maybe this year will be different, but many years in Seattle it turns cloudy and rainy at the beginning of September and just doesn’t seem to quit until July of the following year.

Here’s a shot of downtown Seattle taken a couple of days ago, in the late afternoon. Visit Shadow Shot Sunday for more kinds of shadows everywhere.

And here’s a link for those who love memes. This site has a list of more memes than you can believe! I’m gonna have to try me some new ones. In my spare time.

http://thehousethatlovebuilt.xanga.com/710713477/theme-days-for-august–/

The best part of the district garden club meetings held every three months is the horticulture they show. You can see the lovely things people grow and be inspired. Here is a blossom of Japanese Anemone, a late-summer perennial. You can see more pink things of all kinds at Pink Saturday.

This was our backyard sky last week, late in the day. Looks like cotton candy, no?

For more skies around the world, visit Skywatch Friday.

This is from about three weeks ago, but the impatiens and geraniums are still looking good. For some reason this anemone plant decided to bloom in August. Who knows why, but so welcome. Purple is one of my favorite colors, so it was especially welcome.

For more extra-bright colors, visit Color Carnival. It’s cool to see so many different ways that people see “colorful.”

This was really a hike. The brochure they give out said it was easy, but they lied. Even so, seeing lots of water tumbling downhill is so wonderful, even if you can’t get close at all or even get a good view. I love waterfalls. It was worth it.

For more watery visions, visit Watery Wednesday. Try posting one yourself!

This Des Moines, Washington nursery goes in for petunias in a big way. Bigger than anything I have ever seen in the way of petunias, or any flower grouping, really. They must have over 100 feet of the most amazing installation of petunias I have ever seen. And they are fragrant, too! It had just rained pretty hard earlier, so these were not even at their perkiest, but wow, is all I can say.

For more flowers, visit Flowers for Today. It’s great.

And be sure to stop by Color Carnival for more amazingly bright colors.

Our last camping trip gave us some great shadow opportunities as well as the blessings of a warm, sunny day, softly shielded from the sun’s bright rays by the forest canopy. You can imagine how fresh the air smelled. For more shadows of all kinds, please visit Shadow Shot Sunday. People are so creative with shadows!

It’s Pink Saturday again, and here are some pink flowers that are different from my usual kinds. Cindy of the fabulous garden and deck flowers shown here a while back sewed this beautiful crazy quilt. And visit Color Carnival for more amazingly bright colors of all kinds.

Enjoy!

We were at a business function last night at the Columbia Tower Club, on the 75th floor, just at dusk. This is about the highest point in Seattle. What a photo opportunity! Here is Mt. Ranier, perhaps 50 miles away, clearly showing its conical volcano shape. Let’s hope an eruption is far in the future, although they say we are overdue. In the sky are the beginnings of those saucer-shaped lenticular clouds, it looks to me, but I am no expert.

For more skies around the planet, visit Skywatch Friday, and look up!