Tennant Lake and Hovander Homestead

Rather than go to a restaurant for lunch, we prepared a picnic and headed over to Tennant Lake where we walked up the steps of this fifty foot tower. We sat on the bench up there and enjoyed the view of Tennant Lake and its surrounding marsh lands with majestic Mount Baker in the background as we dined.

Then we walked through the marsh on the raised boardwalk. This boardwalk had been closed due to severe damage from the flood waters of the nearby Nooksack River several years ago. More information about this marsh and photos of the flooding are available here - Really Rose Blog - Great Classrooms - Tennant Lake. I was delighted to see that repairs have finally been made and the boardwalk is once again open.

The boardwalk meanders through the wooded marsh and along the edge of the lake for a ways before it meanders back through the marsh again and takes us to a gravel trail that leads back to the tower where we ateour lunch. The lake was absolutely full of water lilies. Their buds still rather small, I must try to get back there when they are in bloom.

After thoroughly exploring the Tennant Lake area, we took a nearby trail leading to the Hovander Homestead.

Dena just loves my dog, so Torrie thinks it's okay to sit on the bench with her.

This is the main house at the Hovander Homestead. The yard is full of fruit trees, raspberries, beds of herbs and raised beds just waiting to be planted with garden vegetables maintained by master gardeners from the Washington State University Extension Master Gardener Program. Most of the produce grown at these Hovander Homestead gardens is donated to the Ferndale Food Bank.

This tiny pump at the Hovander Homestead seems dwarfed by the size of this water tower.

There is also a Children's Story Garden and a good sized green house on the grounds. Also maintained by the Master Gardeners, we peaked through the greenhouse windows and saw tables full of tomato plants, no doubt for the Master Gardener Plant Sale that's coming up on May 7th.

Here is a video that was prepared some time ago by KVOS Television about Hovander Homestead Park and the Tennant Lake Interpretative Center.

This video must be several years old because much of the Whatcom County Parks Department funding for this park is no longer available and they have dropped the educational programs they had offerred for the local school children.