New Life, No Life
While walking with my youngest to the bus stop a couple weeks ago, I noticed two things that caught my eye. Above is one of our fruit trees we planted in our new orchard. Maybe five or so weeks ago it was covered in blossoms and looked nice. The blossoms them wilted as they tend to do but it never leafed out while all the other trees in the orchard have leafed out weeks ago. I thought it had perished for unknown reasons. However, a new burst of white caught my eye and when I walked over to look, I saw that it had more blossoms and some leaves. So I'm not sure what is going on. Perhaps being new to this world, it thought our cold streak a few weeks back meant winter wasn't over quite yet and now it has reconsidered yet again. I can't recall what kind of tree it is. I think it is either an apple or a sour cherry but I am unsure right now. The blossom looks like a sour cherry but both of my other sour cherry trees have long blossomed and are full of fruit already. Perhaps once it gets it's act together, I will know for sure.
I didn't notice the below object on the way to the bus stop but it caught my eye on the way back. At first, I wasn't quite sure what it was from my eye sight about five feet further than this photo was taken. It looked organic but the colors seemed a bit unnatural. It took me poking it with a stick after taking this photo to realize it was indeed organic and had been a living toad that was now very much dead having evidently been run over. The weird angle of the legs going in opposite directions I guess threw me for a visual loop. Upon flipping it over, it is very much the normal drab gray/brown that I am familiar with. However the bright colorings of the legs are not something familiar to me. Anyway, I'll never know the answer to why it was crossing the road since it never made it to the other side.
The weather mixes us up, but I see that ours should be good now for the next two weeks — the temperature, at least.
ReplyDeleteWe had a fairly mild spring and thus far, it is still continuing though it has been a bit warm these last couple days.
DeleteHope your tree figures things out. "Was he toad not to cross the road?"
ReplyDeleteI can't answer that question and neither can he either!
DeleteOh, gosh. You're braver than I am for posting the roadkill photo. I'll take photos like that to show my husband when I get back from walks, but would fear backlash from soft-hearted readers if I posted one on my blog. It reminds me of the dancing cartoon frog that wears a top hat. See... that's its hat next to the top leg!
ReplyDeleteI do try to not put photos like that at the top of my blog and usually contain them to the bottom so sensitive viewers can scroll back up and avoid looking at it. When I took the picture, I was further away from the frog so it didn't look so bad and I guess I didn't really look at it to hard when I added it to a blog post. Now that the post had published, it does seem a bit in your face and I probably should have added a warning above it. Lesson learned.
DeletePoor toad! I've never seen one with such bright yellow legs. I haven't seen a toad in ages, actually. We don't have them in our garden here but I used to see them in Florida all the time when I was young.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't see them every day, we do have them around though I guess I've never picked one up to see the underside of their legs. From their backs, they look very uncolorful!
DeleteSuch an artsy photo of a smashed toad! And then it becomes gross with his innards out there.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I didn't pay much attention when I stuck it on my blog and with my eyesight and only seeing it from several feet away, it didn't look so gross. Now that I am reading comments and paying attention, I should have perhaps provided a warning at the minimum or at least not cropped the photo.
DeletePoor toad! I've seen a possum and a raccoon in the road lately and a few bunnies too. Poor creatures.
ReplyDeleteI see lots of possum, raccoon, deer, squirrels and rabbits along our roads. In fact, there is a phone number to call and someone from the county or city, depending on the location, will come out and remove the deceased creature. I had to use it one time when a deer that someone had poorly shot ended up dying in my backyard.
DeleteTrees amaze me because they seem to have their own time table. It doesn't seem to be strictly related to length of daylight or temperature. I can look back over the years at various photographs and see by the dates that blooming and leafing out can vary quite a bit from year to year. Ditto for going dormant in autumn.
ReplyDeleteThey sure do. However, this is the first time I have seen one bloom twice, several weeks apart. I'm guessing it isn't unusual that it happens but just unusual that I noticed.
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