Sunday, March 24, 2013
Today we head down the road to Amity, a little town just south of McMinnville, for the Daffodil Festival. There are Daffodil Festivals in several other cities and towns, but this is the closest one to us.
This festival, held here beginning in 1995, is largely planned and staffed by the local high school. The attendants are well-versed, the program informative, the events well-planned.
We begin by signing up for a Sunday event, a VolksWalk, sponsored by, among others, the American Volksport Association. This one is a 10K course, with several variations. We will walk from the elementary school to Daffodil Hill Farm, the first check-in point, following the orange arrows. From there we will follow the pink arrows to the Brigittine Monastery.
Fortified by a breakfast burrito (scrambled eggs, ham and cheese – sorry no salsa) purchased from a friendly high-school volunteer, we begin our trek. We walk through downtown, make a loop on back streets past the cemetery, then head past the fire department and across the bridge (yes, there’s water under it!) to a side road.
We begin to meet folks walking back toward town. Past fields sown with grass cover crops and huge barns with heavy farm equipment, up the hill we go. Daffodil Hill can be seen from far away – it’s on the highest point around, some 165 feet above sea level, Bob tells me.
We check in with the two students staffing the checkpoint, have a cup of water, and pet the German Shepherd pup. Then down the hill and past more fields, and finally through Evergreen’s Amity Farm, with its fields of nut trees, to the Brigittine Monastery, where the Palm Sunday service is just ending. A bell peals – thrice, silence, thrice more. A pause, then the whole peal rings out, three or four underlying notes as counterpoint to the regular toll of the lead bell.
As we wait for the shuttle bus back to the elementary school, the congregation assembles outside. The celebrants process in full regalia. Palm fronds are handed out. Scripture is read. The censer is swung. The final bit of the service concludes.
We board the shuttle, a small school bus, for the short trip back to Amity Elementary School. This is clearly an elementary school bus – seats are small. But there are two lap belts on each seat. Our driver, it turns out, is the principal of the middle school. We find this out because the mother of one of his students, out walking her dog, waves him down and consults him through the window. He convinces her that he will talk to her later.
Here we ask directions to the daffodil show – right and right again. An amazing flower show – who knew there were so many varieties of daffodil and that some of them smell delicious. There are all kinds of divisions and categories – groupings of flowers, traditional varieties, hybrids, single stems, multiple stems -- even one for junior growers. A small grower is one who grown no more than 50 different kinds of daffodils. See, I learned some things today!
We tour the room, enjoying the beauty. There is a division for wild daffodils, but clearly these did not last through the three days of the festival – there are labels but the flowers are gone.
We forgo ham and escalloped potatoes for lunch, but do check in at the plant sale before we leave. There are trees and succulents and flowering plants, but no herbs.
Back in MAC, we stop in at Red Fox Bakery, thinking we will try one of their sandwiches for lunch. Alas, they don’t do lunch on Sunday, as that’s the bread baker’s day off. So we walk to the corner of 3rd and Evans, climb the stairs to the Rooftop Bar at McMenamin’s Hotel Oregon.
In this eclectic setting, we enjoy soup – zucchini-tomato-basil and African peanut-curry – with some chewy, crusty bread, and a couple of artisan beers. We note that this would be a very pleasant place to sit outside and sip on a warm day.
Home again, it’s nap time. For dinner I make my favorite southern-style cornbread (no flour!) from an America’s Test Kitchen recipe. I would link to the recipe, but, annoyingly, this is a subscription-only site.
We enjoy it with leftover chili (Bob) and beans with ham (me). Then follows a raspberry truffle (half each), Sixty Minutes and a blog post before bedtime. I sleep well.
