Plum tree redux

For those of us worried about climate change, it's somewhat reassuring that the plum tree across from our balcony is in bloom as it was at exactly this time last year. At this point the blooms are past peak, and most of the petals are floating in the building's communal pool. Unlike last year I am not resisting spring. I need it. I want it. Although spring in California, for the transplanted Midwesterner, always brings guilt. My hometown of Rocky River, Ohio, is under twenty inches of snow. Meanwhile I look through my office window at a cobalt sky, and will walk to the train station this evening with my jacket tied around my waist. In Ohio you really feel like you've accomplished something when those first crocuses push through the crust of blackened snow; here, the plum tree has been bare for a mere six weeks. On top of that, we're back to daylight savings time, which must be bizarre for Ohioans staring through the bright evening at another Arctic clipper. Anyway, I feel I should be suffering more. Fortunately, I have hay fever from all these blooming trees.

Tree report

So the plum tree outside our living room window has already bloomed and most of the petals are gone already. Last year's tree report, from March 10, indicates the blooms had just passed peak on that date. I'm going to guess it bloomed two weeks earlier this year.

Also, last summer an extremely large plum crop bent most of the branches at a right angle, and they've remained that way. Beware--from the west it comes! the tree seems to be saying.

Ah, the ominous flowers of springtime.

No more tree

Sometime yesterday the neighbors took out the plum tree that I've been using to measure the passage of time. Now we have a lovely, unobstructed view of the carport, and no more white blossoms in March.

Not ready

The plum tree outside our living room window is in full bloom, white blossoms like popcorn. It was just a few months ago that all last year's leaves finally blew off. They were very tenacious, those leaves, and when they finally let go it meant it really was winter. But the white blossoms don't give me spring fever as they usually would. I'm not ready to ramp up for warm weather and sun and daylight saving time. The whole renewal business seems kind of absurd.