• Friday-What'sUP June 21 - 09:43 pm

If you've been outdoors at all for the past week or so here in the Copper Country, you've probably gotten a whiff of the heady scent that comes from bushes loaded with lilacs. These are my favorite flower, with a scent so divine. I just wish they lasted longer on the vine and in the vase.

Barb Bouwkamp snapped the first two photos, today. With her top photo, you might think the emphasis is on the Quincy Mine, but in reality, she clicked the shutter button on this one, to show off the myriad of lilacs on the bushes bordering the historic shaft house. I can only imagine the scents coming from that many blooms!

The second shot was taken between Seney and Blaney Park, on highway M-77. Barb says they've passed by this falling down farmhouse for 30 years of traveling back and forth downstate. She's stopped to take photos of it in all kinds of weather, snow on the ground, colorful leaves in the fall and this time, she stopped to smell the lilacs blooming there, bringing beauty to the sadness of this homestead left to nature.

With our last photo, from Mary Schmitt, we get a closer look at the beauty of the lilacs, from the deep purple, before they completely open up, to the lighter color, once they've spread out and are giving off the unmistakable scent they do. Don't you wish you could lean in and smell them right now?

These are a few of my favorite things.

Very nice...I had a bumper crop in my backyard a few weeks ago.

Our lilacs were in full bloom in early June. So sad when they've finished blooming. They are so pretty and make your yard smell so good.

Looks like the old homestead could use a little work :-)

Someone mentioned yesterday that the old homesteads all had apple trees. Maybe second after the apple trees were the lilac bushes. If you see them in an open filed you can be almost sure there used to be a homestead there.

guess that s/b FIELD

:}

LOL, Jbuck!! I caught that but it's not my job to be the spelling police, lolol!!!

And I'm pretty sure you're right about there being homesteads where there are lilacs!!

Flower Power!

Interesting, that most sites of feral apple trees were former mining locations.

My favorite bush! Mine bloomed a long time ago but the sad part is they didn't seem to last as long this year.:<
Thanks Barb and Mary, for the glimpses of beauty!

Lombardy Poplar trees are also a marker. They usually are around the more up-scale houses. Nice pictures, strange to see Lilacs now since they bloomed down here about 6 weeks ago.

I had to make the first picture "my background" on the computer. Lilacs have always been a favorite of mine.

oh how I love the lilac photos today! I can almost smell the lovely spring flowers!

Paul H., we planted several Lombardy Poplar trees a few years ago ~ they got really tall and pretty but died pretty soon thereafter. Maybe we should've been living in an 'up-scale' neighborhood instead of out in the country.:>

Wishing I could "scratch and sniff" the computer screen--I feel so deprived out here far West. What a heady fragrance! I miss it. Don't take it for granted up there, OK?

Beautiful. Lilacs across the U.P., including Mackinac Island.

Shirley,
For some reason the these new generation Lombardy Poplars can't seem to hack it. There are some still going strong in Central and other locations in the Copper Country after more than 100 years. I think they also showed up in the Italian neighborhoods as well.

We sort of figured it was our soil ~ too much clay, maybe.

Just got back from Da UP and CC and the Lilacs were so thick in some places that I found the fragrance to be over powering in some locations if you happened to be down wind.
Had one bush just out side the door of the house where I was staying and it greeted me coming and going from the door. One bush was not bad but a whole hedge row will just about knock you down.