I love to visit other people's gardens, and no one I know has a more idyllic backyard than my cousin Joe. He lives in Eastern Washington in Wenatchee where I went for a family reunion last weekend, and while that is a little far afield from the Olympic Peninsula, he grew up in Shelton, so I'm including him on my blog because it's...well...my blog, and I can do whatever I want.Washington State, for what it's worth, ranks first in the U.S. in apple production, and a majority of those apples come from the Wenatchee Valley which is the state's largest producer and exporter of this fruit grown on over 170,000 acres of orchard there.
As a matter of fact, Joe, who was recently unemployed like myself, just took a job at a fruit processing plant. Me, I just got a part-time job at the local food co-op, too.
I'd never been to Joe and Pat's house before, so I had no idea what to expect. All I heard was "they have a pool." I'm not much of a swimmer, so the pool itself wasn't much of a draw, but by the time the weekend was over all of us cousins who used their place as command central were ready to move in for the summer.
So here's some serious garden porn to gaze upon. This first picture is an arbor that leads into a circular hideaway enclosed by greenery. My cousin Victoria said it was the perfect place to take a book and read.
