• Monday-What'sUP June 6 - 01:00 pm

This picture from Nancy Nelson, was taken atop Bumbeltown hill, where the view of the Keweenaw is spectacular. Seems like there's always a breeze up there, so I bet you can smell these lilacs as soon as you set foot out the door of your car. The second photo, from our own Pasty.net staffer, Daryl Laitila, moves in closer to the bushes for a good glimpse of these fragrant flowers in her Mackinaw Island album. My morning walk is enhanced with the scent of these pretty blooms this time of year, making me slow down to enjoy their perfume. Last but not least, is this shot from Abby de Roche, shows us the less common white variety of lilacs. Funny they're still called lilacs, when they're not lilac in color! I wonder, do they carry the same scent too?

Mary, they do carry the scent but not as strong. We have a really dark purple lilac here too. Also called lilacs. The most scented one is the real lilac colored one though. We have them all in our yard. The original lilac smells much better than all of them. But they all add beauty to our yard. We first lined our yard with spruce trees but they didn't make the winters. Don't know why. Probably didn't get enough snow to cover them so they wouldn't get burned by the sun when they were wet from snow. Anyway, the smell is great and these pictures are lovely.

Fabulous! I love the color and the fragrance.

Perfect..Ours just finished up here in Toronto
last week. I can smell the ones in the picture
all the way from the Keweenaw. 25 days til the
UP. The countdown begins.

Beautiful pictures. Wish they could come up with smell- o -vision. Bill Gates we know you can do it.

Morning all,

If you ever find the time to visit Mackinaw Island during the spring, it is well worth the trip to see the lilacs. There are so many that the entire island smells like one big air freshener!!

Beautiful pics of the lilacs :) What a cowinkiedink, I am sitting here this morning drinking my coffee out of my Mackinac Island Lilac Festival coffee cup. According to what's printed on this cup, the Lilac Festival is held each June at the Island. Aaaaaaaaaah, the smell of home :)

Sur5er, You're up so early. It's nice to get up this early to see the beautiful pictures Mary posts and have a little light coversation about them with great friends. Hope you got enough sleep.

Daryl's picture looks like the one I used for my background last year. Maybe it's just similar. Have a great day!

I assume Sur5er is on early to avoid a repeat from the other day when we almost sent out a search party!! ;-)

I love many flowers but the lilac and lillies of the valley are the fav. I had a small bunch of lillies of the valley pinned to my First Communion veil when I was a little girl.And yes the white lilacs do have a mild fragrance but the old purple one smell best. Have a good day all

The thing I remember about lilacs in the CC are the old mine locations where the overgrown lilac bushes mark the location of the front stoop of the old company houses which are long since gone. The fragrance is surpassed only by that of the arbutus (May flower) which is all but gone from this area. I remeber when kids would pick it on Sugarloaf Mt. and sell bunches on the Big Bay road. I seem to be hitting the little round ball better this Summer! I wonder if the Golfgods finally recognize that I am trying to play their game and are taking pitty on me? Beautiful day here in Marquette this Monday.

Lilacs,my favorite flower...the one we just don't have down here. The fragrance ,the color...oh,I wish I could be there!

At home we had lilac bushes and our yard smelled heavenly when they bloomed. My Mom loved them and my Dad would always bring in a large bouquet for the kitchen.

Ms Katie, I have lily of the valey along one side of my house.They come from very old stock.I got them years ago from my sisters house in $Bay.It is a very old home that belonged to the St John's. Mrs St John was the kindergarten teacher for the older generation from Dollar Bay. She is another good memory.The smell from them is heavenly and I always have to bring some in. Have a niceday everyone.

Fran, Was Mrs Gafney a teacher when you went to school.Her son Mickey was one of my best friends.

Michael Du Long (Mikie):
I know Mrs. Gafney taught at Dollar Bay when we lived there in the early 60's. My brother Gary had her and she and Miss MacDonald were his favorite teachers. Great memories of $Bay and Hubbell.

Lilacs don't grow well here in GA either, but just a little further north, they are great! Saw lots of colors in VA a few years ago when my sister got married. There were the ones mentioned on here -- lilac, of course, white, a deeper purple, and also a purpley kind of red, almost a magenta. They all smelled great and I enjoyed them so much. The second picture in today's trio is one I often use for my desktop background.

Mikie,yes she taught there for many yrs before and some years after I graduated. If I am not mistaken Mickey was in my younger brothers class.

Hi Sdc,what are you up to, enjoying all these pretty spring flowers?

Lilacs are also my favorite flower.
One of the things that drew my wife our new house was the lilac bushes growing in the front yard. She knew I'd love to have the windows open and have the breeze blow the scent in.
I just wish they would last all summer and the dandelions only last a few weeks!

thats one of the things we miss here in phoenix, Lilacs blooming. My grandparents yard was surrounded by them and every spring you walked around their place with this sweet taste in your mouth.
i can smell them now! oh wait thats a yankee candle burningLOL.

Hei, Mrs. Gafney was our home room teacher back in the mid-50s. I remember that '55 or '56 Mercury 2 door hardtop that she drove. Really nice. The lilacs just got finished blooming UP here in Cornell. They DO smell good. The Lilies of the Valley, too. With all the rain and warm weather we've been having, you can almost HEAR the grass growing! Not good, with 2 five gallon gas cans costing $30 to fill. Grrr! But, the old Cub Cadet keeps running like a fine Swiss watch, so dis Finnkai is happy. :o)

Thank you, Charlie & Edie for the sprigs from your bountiful lilac bushes last week on my visit back home. A couple samples(in water!) made it all the way back with me on the airplane to California (along with some Forget-Me-Nots) to please some other misplaced Michiganders here on Catalina Island.

Mickey Gafney was one of my best friends and it broke my heart the way he died. Mrs. Gafney called me for years and we would talk about her son. I always liked her. Her dad was a butcher in Hubbell, by the name of Walter Hodge, was like a granpa to me also. Spent many days at their house playing.

Fran: I do think I remember Mrs. St John! Would she have taught 3rd or 4th grade in the 40s?---cause that's what I was in then! (dates me don't it? Arrgh!) I do remember for sure we had Mrs. Hellman!
Lilacs! We have both regular (lots) and the White which after 27 years is dying! Don't know why! Sad. When we lived in St.Clair Shores years ago we had a miniature French Lilac shrub! Interesting when traveling back country roads and coming across big old Lilac shrubs growing alone or amongst other shrubs, trees, check and one can tell usually was an old abandoned farmstead! You can almost tell where the house itself was situated!

Kosk! : Same here 25 days and counting! !

Russ Emmons down in SE troll land

What I started to say was they had a huge lilac bush in their yard that I took a cutting from and it is by my driveway and thriving. flowers are gone though.

Lois, you hit the lilacs at their peak here. Sorry we didn't have more time to visit before you flew back to your island.

Lois,
I was just on your island in the Pacific! I took my 8th grade class to Toyon Bay for the marine studies camp. What a great week we had, most of my kids had never seen an ocean let alone snorkled with Bat Rays!

What struck ME most about Catalina was how good all the foliage smelled...it was like walking throug an exotic spice market. snifffff!

Mrs. Grace Gaffney taught just about everyone in Dollar Bay. She retired after 32 years of teaching in 1976. She didn't retire willingly though. I think she would have continued for many more years if she had been able, unfortunately she missed most of the 1976 school year because she was in poor health. It's a wonder that we learned anything in Trig that year because we had about 6 different substitutes and none of them were math teachers. Finally Mr. Wilfred Milde, the retired superintendant came out of retirement to teach the class for the remainder of the year.