I just got back home from a trip to The Netherlands where I saw millions of blooming bulbs: tulips, narcissus, muscari and hyacinths. The fields of flowers in and around Lisse are beautiful. And surreal. After living in Iowa much of my life, row crops are a familiar sight--long straight rows of green corn and soybeans. But sections of red, yellow and pink flowers aren't. Big blocks of color like a Mondrian painting.
Canals rim the bulb fields. In fact there's water nearly everywhere, but it stays well-behaved in canals because the Dutch are masters of water management.
The farm pastures were carpeted with grass and Texel sheep, Holstein cows and Friesian horses (all Dutch breeds) grazed happily. Long-legged European hares danced in the fields and white trumpeter swans nested along the canals. The landscape there is just startling beautiful.
And when I arrived home after 10 days abroad, Spring had arrived at our farm too. The narcissus were up and waving, the crab apples trees held tiny fists of petals that were ready to burst open and the grass was the same emerald green as in the Dutch farm fields.
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I have always dreamed of seeing Netherlands! When you wrote that the grass was the same as the Dutch farm fields I thought "ahhh, perhapes it is!" So, I'll just keep ordering my bulbs from the Dutch bulb catalog and continue working on our own little piece of the 'old country' here....but still I wish to one day I could see the REAL place! I'm glad you were able to go and thankful you shared with us....can you imagine having that many beautiful tulips?
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