Winter, Japanese Garden Style

Winter has been kicking my butt, and I know I'm not alone in this feeling. In our part of the world, in our part of the country, in our part of the state, winter is all-day gray, wet and gusty. We had a small window of time today where the clouds broke up and a little warm air waltzed in, so I took my son over to the...you guessed it... Japanese Garden. I'm trying to get a good idea of what each season looks like in this place. I've seen summer, fall, and now today at the beginning of January. The camellia blossom in this photo set? I took that one today too. I saw another white camellia blossom with somewhat watery petals blooming elsewhere in the garden today, and one bud that looked about ready to pop.

Mostly what I saw today was lush, green and lovely. There were plenty of bare branches, but they were like sculptures here. The only thing missing were the koi, who were off sleeping. The koi pond with the giant waterfall was murky today, and we could see no fish. The other koi pond contained large quiescent orange blobs floating far out in the middle of it. A strange contrast to their usual busy hunger-induced traveling.

This is a happy little antidote to our most miserable weather. It's hard to get out when it gets like this. For me, I have to almost force myself. I want to hole up and wallow, but there's such a reward in going out and seeing and doing. Like our trip to see the Spruce Goose... We had to drive through a blasting rain/snow storm to get to McMinnville, but then we got to see, well, the Spruce Goose. And now I can finally say I've see a little of beautiful Yamhill County (which I will be begging to visit again next summer).

Next I'm going to be looking up ways to get us to Mt. Hood. I'll do it, yes I will.

Here's one for the road: