Visitors find inspiration in lavender; Sequim festival continues through today
Sarah Tibbits, 4, of Wenatchee samples some Sequim lavender just outside the Lavender Festival Street Fair on Friday. Sarah came to Sequim with her mom, Heidi Tibbits, and her grandmother Kathy Armitage. The free Street Fair on Fir Street features more than 150 vendors and continues from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today. -- Photo by Diane Urbani de la Paz/Peninsula Daily News
By Diane Urbani de la Paz, Peninsula Daily News
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Mo and her husband, Fran, have long worked opposite shifts at their jobs in Chesterfield, N.J., midway between Philadelphia and New York City.
She's a hospital emergency room secretary; he's a metal fabricator. They meet on weekends in their garden, where Mo has a small patch of lavender.
Last year, Mo happened to find the Sequim Lavender Festival on the Internet.
Further surfing led to vistas of lavender fields fed by the Dungeness River, and of Olympic National Park.
"We have to go," she told Fran.
He was fine with that. Mo and Fran have been married 20 years, but work keeps them apart a lot — so a long trip into the West sounded like an ideal respite.
Their first festival stop on Saturday morning was Angel Farm, the windswept field with a view of the mountains off Old Olympic Highway.
Tour continues today
Angel is one of eight farms on the Lavender Festival tour that continues today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Unlike most other farms, this one is opened to the public only in mid-July; after the festival, Cathy and Angel rededicate themselves to the harvest, and to All Things Lavender, the retail store they share with two nearby growers, The Weary Gardener and Sequim Lavender Farm, at Pike Place Market in Seattle.
Out here in the field, forgetting all that is easy.
The Frankens strolled together through the rows of Spanish, French and English lavenders, past the lavender cheesecake, past the prawns sizzling in lavender seasoning.
Mo paused to have a farm volunteer dab lavender cream on her hands; it felt like silk.
Then the pair followed farmer Cathy Angel into the barn where 30,000 bundles of lavender will soon be hung, fanned and finally packed in sleeves for shipping.
Angel, who's been growing lavender just north of Sequim for nine years, showed Mo and Fran a big, homely machine that helps make it all possible: the bud scrubber.
Angel's husband Leeon found the 50-year-old machine in Oregon's Willamette Valley; it used to clean grass and rye seed, and had never tasted a lavender stem.
Leeon, however, thought the thing could clean lavender buds. If he could get it going, the old machine might liberate farmers from the labor costs stemming from one of the toughest post-harvest tasks.
"So he bought it; it had no instruction manual," Angel recalled.
"He brought it home on the trailer and I said, 'Where does the lavender bud come out?' and he said, 'I don't know.'"
Fortunately Leeon, Angel's sweetheart since 11th grade, is a mechanical whiz.
"It took him two or three weeks to figure out how to make it clean lavender bud," she said.
"It's a sifting, sorting, vibrating thing," that sends the bud through a series of screens and bins until it's soft and fragrant.
Jitter Bud
That was years ago. Now the Angels fire up Jitter Bud, as they call the contraption, for their own harvest and for that of most lavender farms across the Dungeness Valley.
Fran, listening to Angel's story, told Mo: "We need to do this for a living."
"Some day," she murmured.
Lavender already figures in Mo's work. One of the female doctors she works with dabs her upper lip with lavender oil — which soothes the healer as well as her colleagues.
"You can smell her coming," Mo said. "She just breathes it in," and stays calm.
"She never gets sick, either."
That didn't surprise Angel, who said she and her farm workers are often surrounded by bees — that don't sting anybody.
"We should have giant sprayers," to distribute essence of lavender in workplaces, Fran joked.
After more lavender-farm touring and a trip to Olympic National Park, the Frankens will return home on Tuesday.
"Reality," Fran said.
Mo took another look at the young lavender plants growing outside the Angels' barn, and thought of her own backyard.
"We both love gardening. It's our saving grace," Mo said.
"People ask us, 'Why are you so mellow?' A lot of it has to do with gardening and nature."
THE SEQUIM LAVENDER Festival continues through today with the free Street Fair, open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fir Street between Sequim and Third Avenues, and tours of eight farms across the Dungeness Valley from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Today, every farm on the tour features cooking demonstrations, live music, children's activities and opportunities to meet the farmers.
Tour buttons are $15 — free for children under the age of 12 years old — and can be purchased at the Street Fair or any of the farms on the circuit.
For information visit www.LavenderFestival.com.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: July 19. 2008 9:00PM