Hymn of Promise

 We will be playing "Hymn of Promise" in bell choir on Sunday. It's great in midwinter or spring.

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

The red maples are showing off their springtime red flowers. These are one of my favorite spring trees.

The church planter is looking nice with daffodils and hyacinths

I am a little sorry to tell you about this last tree, although it's about to burst in blossom. And it has at least 10 friends. I'm pretty sure these are Bradford Pear, Pyrus calleryana. They were brought to the US in the 1960s as an ornamental tree, but they out-compete a lot of native trees and revert to a brittle, thorny tree that naturalizes in woodlands. They are considered a real no-no farther south, and are now banned in a number of states. Maybe I can confirm this on Sunday. The flowers should have an unpleasant odor if it's this pear.

Even though it was nice out, I worked hard on editing and writing. I have so much to do, and Saturday and Sunday I did nothing on these projects.

I guess if there's an upside to the writing, I have finally figured out a format for the campsite list that seems to work with all the options, and I can organize it in a spreadsheet to double check the mileages. I feel as if this is going a little faster now, which would be really good.

See A Riot of Daffs

Beauty Surrounds Me

 
Spring is in full-tilt loveliness here, so I want to share. You've seen all these before, but not this year, so I hope you enjoy them again.

The is cowslip primrose, and it continues to do well in my un-kept garden.



The crabapple tree is wonderful, as it almost always is.



Lots of common purple violets, but just because they are ordinary doesn't mean they aren't beautiful.



I think my lilacs are going to look really nice this year. I'll take any blooming things I can get!



And finally, the pear trees are looking great. The sour cherry trees also had great blossoms. Now if we don't get a late hard frost, this might be a good fruit year.



In other news: I wrote all morning, and then worked on my newspaper column in the afternoon. It's due on Monday. Seems like these months between deadlines get shorter and shorter! Also went shopping. Wow- Meijer was packed. I guess everyone local decided to shop before the weekend really began. I ran into 4 separate people I know that I hadn't seen in a long time. That was fun. But then a lady cut ahead of me in the checkout line. Instead of being gracious, I fussed at her, which didn't make her give me my place back, or make me feel better either. Wonder why I decided to be snippy today... I don't usually bother--it's such a small thing, and I wasn't even pressed for time. I also got ready for the weekend- I begin the summer vendor events tomorrow morning. Here we go. I think I'll need to hang on for the ride, but I've decided I've got to go all in to sell books.

	See Primrose Lane
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The Tolerable Snowman

 
Today was characterized by... snow. I may track considerable snow inside, but I also remove much more from the driveway. To be honest, I'm hardly snow covered compared to the days it's windy. We have about a foot on the ground.

I love how each type of tree is enhanced by the dry white flakes. They've stayed on the trees all day. White Pine.



Blue Spruce.

Red Pine.



And a pear tree with no partridge.



And, it's back to work for the night in a couple of hours.

In other news: Worked till about 1:30. Cleared the driveway. Finished the beta-read of Murder on the Brewster Flats (a really fun book). Did a few errands. Wrote a little bit on Secret Cellar (may be past the part that is giving me trouble). Started reading a new book- not very interesting yet, and I'm losing my tolerance to stick with books that don't grab me. I have piles of books that probably will be interesting.

	See Fruity? for the pear tree in a different white phase
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Fruity?

 
Lots of lovely blossoms right now. It could be a good fruit year. Of course, it's only the second week in May, so we could have a hard frost yet.

And in deciding what to picture this afternoon, I learned something new. If you had shown me just these blossoms, I don't think I could have identified them. Even if you'd given me the three trees, I would have had to guess as to which is which. Now, maybe I'll recognize them better.

The three all have white blossoms: sour cherry, Bartlett pears, and edible crabapple (possibly Ralph Shay variety).

Let's do the easy one first. This is our crabapple. It's an old-fashioned one that you can eat the apples, not an ornamental one. It's so old it should be long dead, but it continues to be wonderful every year. The flowers have long twisted petals with a spray of yellow stamens and anthers.





The other two are harder to tell apart. Here is the sour cherry. The petals are nearly round. The filaments are white with greenish anthers (the two parts of the stamen).





And the pear. The pear petals are nearly identical to the cherry, and maybe it's easiest to distinguish them by looking at the longer view. The filaments are white, but the anthers are darker, looking as if there is a spray of dark dots surrounding the center of the blossom.





If we have a good fruit year, it's hard to do enough with it all to keep me from feeling wasteful. This is especially true of the pears. Although, I have now collected quite a few recipes of things to do with them that we like, and can be frozen.

Last year, I didn't manage to do much at all with our fruit. Even though it wasn't a great year, I didn't do a single thing except with some apples. Hopefully, I'll do better this year.

	See Red, Lovely Crabapples
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