18 May 2013

If At First You Don't Succeed - Sundays in My City

Take a day off work and try again.  I've been called stubborn and hard-headed. I prefer to use words like determined or dedicated :)  As soon as it was clear that we were not going to make it to the flower fields last weekend I was figuring out how I could get back there before the blooms were cut.  The flowers grown here (the large majority) are not grown to be cut as flowers; they're grown for bulb production.  So the blooms are cut off and the bulbs are harvested.  I knew there were probably only a few days left since the Keukenhof closes this weekend.

So, the other day I took the almost-3-hr train ride back north, rented a very crappy bike (from a different place closer to the fields), tucked my camera bulkily into my coat and rode in the cold and the rain to see the fields. Many of them had been cut but there were a few left.

I imagined this

[Source]
I got this
Notice the two very different sizes of blooms.


A few bulbs get missed by the cutting machine.
Or more than a few.




The cutting.
Although not as colorful as the tulips, the hyacinths smell amazing. Especially in the damp air. You can see the raindrops in the water.

Some of the most colorful fields couldn't be reached without climbing a fence and trespassing (not that I'm opposed to such actions but I did not engage on this particular outing).

I did not see any giant piles of cut blooms and I'm not sure why.  My Mom remembers seeing the fields full of blooms one day and then the giant piles of red and yellow and orange tulip heads the next.  Maybe they have new machines (hmmm, machinery advances in 20-something years?) that don't leave the big piles?  I was actually looking forward to it.  Anyway, it might not have been the outing I had envisioned but I can say I rode a bike through the tulip fields...how much more Dutch can you get?


Unknown Mami

22 comments:

  1. I'm glad you got out there! They're beautiful. Although the shot of the petals lying on the ground left me a little teary.

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  2. wow, wow, wow...this is something to see with own eyes...amazing!

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  3. Beautiful flowers, I can practically smell them!

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  4. I said WOW...out loud! I mean really LOUD! Those are amazing photos! I can not even imagine seeing a field of flowers like this! My mind can't comprehend! I'm so glad you got on that old rickety bike and took pics to share! WOW...oh I said that!!!

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  5. I am glad you endured the train, the rain, and the crappy bike to bring these pictures to us. They are so beautiful. Almost hard to believe that such beauty exists.

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  6. Purple and yellow are my favorites.

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  7. Okay! there is nothing more Dutch then that! and Your photos are beautiful!

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  8. You saw a lot more than we did a month ago :) All of the tulips we saw were in W. Alexander Pavillion. I wrote a post on it on my blog, but we were lucky as our friends drove us to Delft, Nijmegen, Harlem to see the little Peter and the dyke etc.. and we saw a lot more of the country. We absolutely love Holland. And I'll we reading through your blog with delight :).

    BTW, we have weekly linky party, please come and share your story if you could, it'd be lovely:
    http://www.pret-a-vivre.com/2013/05/ready-to-waltz-its-party-time_16.html

    Have a great week ahead,
    BiTi

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  9. Oh my!!! Thank you for all your trouble!!! These photos are so worth it.

    Easy fo me to say - I'm not the one who had to trouble.

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  10. OMGoodness, all those beautiful blooms just wasting, that hurt my heart!
    Stunning, gorgeous photos.

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  11. Thank you for joining us Dorothy, you made our weekend :)

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  12. What a feast for these tired eyes at the end of a work day in front of the computer :-) Both trips worth of photos are simply breathtaking. You must have had a really happy day even with the rain! It was worth it. Thank you for visiting me! I'm glad you did as I wouldn't have this chance to see your great blog! (And I really like the "Sundays in My City" blog links too).

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  13. So pretty - tulips are my absolute favorite flower. They are the picture of perfection! I recently visited a flower field here in So Cal which I'll be posting about soon. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Looking forward to it. I'll be posting about cheese tasting soon :)

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  14. Wow! Straight from your imagination to your blog via your camera! Looks beautiful. I would feel sad to see piles of cut blooms. :-)

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    1. My mom was also very sad at the piles of cut blooms. I think it's just another form of beauty.

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  15. I love tulips, they are so beautiful! Great pictures!

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  16. Wonderful photos. There are thousands of acres of tulips grown here too. (Skagit Valley, Washington). The tulips here are beheaded by hand, I've never seen a machine in the fields. The workers (unfortunately very low paid farm workers who travel the country following the crops - a shame on the US) clip them into baskets and at the end of the month long tulip festival the clipped flowers are used by the high school students to make mosaics that are on display for two days. I loved seeing your photos of the tulip fields - often planted differently that the fields here, we don't seem to have such wide rows of tulips (also daffodils are grown in the same area). I enjoyed you photos so much.

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  17. I think it looks like an awesome outing.

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