tulips in Virginia while Mubarak resigns!!!

The past few weeks have been so much brighter because of the uplifting colors of fresh cut tulips and the exciting events unfolding in Egypt. This morning the Egyptians are celebrating the departure of the 30 year dictator Hosni Mubarak and the dissolving of his national political party of about 60 years. NPR article here. I have been glued to the cable news TV watching all the exciting interviews and live shots of peaceful protests.
Over the last 30 years we have seen this sort of peaceful protest dissolve numerous oppressive governments. It started with the Berlin wall and today in Egypt the middle east and Arab countries have joined the peoples movement against tyranny. I am excited for them and I hope they find a way to get a real representative government quickly and open up for business soon as possible.

Meanwhile today we found an article about the great fresh cut tulips we have been buying and enjoying in the Washington Post. I thought I should share it with my friends. I have always enjoyed tulips as cut flowers because they continue to grow once they have been cut and open and show off their colors after they have been separated from their bulbs. One of the reasons these locally grown tulips do last so long and bloom out fully is that they get to us 5 days faster than the ones that come from overseas. It is also funny that they can grow a million cut tulips a day during the winter season on a farm of only 8 acres  which supplies stores from Boston to Miami. The bulbs are grown over seas but the plants  develop here in green houses. This article tells it all every thing you might like to know about forcing tulips to bloom.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/09/AR2011020903831.html