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| Imitation Cherry Tree 2024 -- not full of blooms |
I couldn’t believe that millions of people would get on those broken-down airplanes and travel from all over the world to see the eclipse. Someone described a total eclipse of the sun as “life-changing.” I have a certain appreciation of it, but tell me I have to endure crowds in order to participate, and I’m not much interested. And I already know what a truly life-changing event looks like.
“Are you going to look at the eclipse,” Mike asked.
And I thought of that time in the fourth grade when Mrs. Peer told our class that we should never look at the sun unless we looked through two black and white film strips. Then it was safe, she said. I wasn’t so sure. I decided then and there to avoid looking directly at the sun. So, no, I didn’t look at the sun even to see a partial eclipse. I thought the sunlight seemed a little duller than usual, but Mike said he didn’t even notice that. Here in the West, the eclipse was a fizzle, but then, we expected this.
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| The cherry tree in April 2023 |
The imitation cherry tree is not going to be spectacular this year. The blossoms developed too soon owing to a warmer winter when we saw little variation in day and night temps. This signals spring to the vegetation, and the blossoms develop too soon. Then we had another spell of lows at or near freezing, and with that, the blossoms failed. Brother Chuck tells me that leaves withstand the cold better than the blossoms. We even saw frost in the Valley this week. It remains to be seen if we have fruit on the farm this year. I reminded Mike that once the apple trees bloom, we must spray them. KW
2 comments:
Broken down airplanes. So true! And so many unruly passengers. No plane rides for me, either. And I missed the whole eclipse thing, too. If it dimmed up here, it did it behind the clouds.
Obviously, people see eclipses as wonderful -- and I guess they are. Somehow I'm unmoved by the actual event.
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