Earth Day
The boys and I went to Capital Nursery today after school. We went to buy a tree to replace the one in our front yard that split in a huge windstorm a while back. I loved that tree and was really sorry it shredded down to nothing like that. I cried over the loss of that tree. So today we picked the same kind: Purple Robe Locust. It has small leaves and huge purple flower clusters, a bit like wisteria, or snapdragons upside-down and on steroids. These clumpy blossoms cover the tree in April and the fat black bees love them—the one who absolutely look like they should not be able to fly. A bonus is that the tree grows quite fast.
The boys enjoyed roaming around the nursery, especially Asher, who relishes any chance to walk wherever he wishes, without cautionary or controlling hands directing his path and keeping him from squishing or being squished by the things and people around him.
The tree we bought is as big as we could get—far too big for the back of my CRV. So it will be delivered tomorrow. Not exactly perfect for celebrating Earth Day, but pretty good if you take a broader, Earth Week, sort of perspective.
This post’s photo from early April is my dogwood tree that’s growing in front of my kitchen window. The flowers here are just opening, still greenish and stiff. The tree was really beautiful in bloom this year, really for the first time. In past years I’ve had so few blooms—only six one year. I think perhaps it’s finally reached a maturity, so that it knows what to do in spring. These blossoms unfolded into drapey white flowers, about two inches across.
Thank you, Mother Earth.
p.s. I like this photo because it looks rather like a painting to me.
