SEQUIM LAVENDER FESTIVAL

Today is Day One of the three day Sequim Lavender Festival. This type of event falls well outside of Odel's area of interest, so I was off on my own fairly early this morning for the 30 mile drive to Sequim. The weather was cool, blustery and damp, spitting raindrops off and on.

Since it was a weekday and not the best weather, I figured it would be less crowded than it will be on the upcoming weekend. That may have been true, but these northwesterners are HARDY. Well before noon, the traffic in little Sequim was heavy.

The festival includes a street fair - entertainment, food, art, crafts and ABSOLUTELY ALL THINGS LAVENDER! Sequim is awash in lavender farms, and all of them vie for your eye with every possible lavender product you can imagine, including a calming neckerchief for your DOG (hmmm... I can think of a certain Jack Russell that probably should own one).

Besides the street fair, you can pay $15 for a three-day ticket that gets you on to the Farm shuttle buses and the grounds of all the lavender farms participating - 8? 10? There also is a tour of artists studios (free), and shuttle buses (free) from parking lots on either end of town to the street fair, a far better idea than taking your car downtown.

I parked, shuttled, ate, browsed, listened to music and to gardening advice and generally participated in the festivities for about 4 hours. I got a big laugh listening to the guy talking about gardening: he and his wife both are avid gardeners with their own ideas, so they each get half the garden. When one discovers and brings home a new plant, the other one isn't allowed to go out and get one just like it! I thought that was so funny!

I ate a delicious crab cake sandwich, helped support the local economy with a few lavender purchases, and finally found the right solution for the "paper or plastic" dilemma at the grocery store: the strong, perfectly-sized, "bring your own" bags being sold at the Washington Tilth booth for JUST $2 each!

They are strong, shaped like a brown paper bag, have two comfortable handles and a solid, flat bottom. This is the first time I have run across a non-disposable bag that is priced inexpensively enough that you can buy several. The front says "Wake up and Save the Farmland"; the back says "Save Energy, Buy Local". Maybe it will be just the reminder I need the next time I eye the mangoes at Safeway.

Now I just need to figure out what we will use to line the kitchen trash!