Last year my husband and I visited a tulip farm not far from our home. It was such a wonderful experience, I wanted to return this year. I watched the website for Holland Ridge Farms (https://www.hollandridgefarms.com/) closely for their opening day. Once the dates were posted I went online to purchase our tickets for this years visit.

Last year we visited the farm toward the end of April, many of the tulips were at full bloom. Beautiful color was everywhere, as far as the eye could see. This year, my strategy was to get there earlier, thinking we would see more tulips not quite as bloomed, but in their prime, sadly, this strategy did not work to my benefit.

Unfortunately, unlike last year, this year, the weather was very cold, windy and the fields were very muddy. The week leading up to opening day, we had quite a lot of rain in NJ. Opening day was set for Friday, April 5, that date was pushed back to Saturday, April 6, due to all of the rain.

Comparing both years, I have mixed feelings about attending on opening day, although I was very excited, I was also a little disappointed. Some varieties of tulips were bloomed, but most of the tulips weren’t even up yet. Much to my dismay, there were very limited photo ops to be had.

However, we did walk through the fields for two hours, taking home over one dozen flowers. Sadly, I didn’t take one photograph of those tulips at home this year.

I have been working on a personal project which oddly does not involve flowers. This project has been quite fulfilling and requires much of my time. It has been a learning process, which has involved learning how to use my flash. Something I have been very hesitate to learn, and have put off for years.

Even though most of the tulips were not in full bloom, the tulips that were bloomed were beautiful. This one maroon or purple (?) tulip caught my attention sitting among so many pale yellow tulips. It most certainly deserved a photograph.

Much to my surprise we discovered some very cute sheep on the farm, and behind them, were sail boats. I thought this was a bit odd, but I did take a few photographs.

As you can see from this horse drawn carriage, most of the fields are still only green, no color, no tulips to be seen. The clouds did make for a nice photograph though.

I will close this blog with one last image of tulips. I do like the contrast of the orange tulips and the storm clouds.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted a blog, I hope you all are doing well.

As always, thank you for following along . . .