April Flowers

Bow has had to put up with a lot of flower pictures lately. When I show them to him, he is singularly unimpressed.

But he will just have to bear with me, because, after all, it is spring, and that is the season for flowers.

Cherry Blossoms

In the morning, we wake up to beautiful birdsong. I let Brownie into the yard at sunrise, and I wish I could follow him, too, because the songs of the birds are beckoning me.

I have seen quite a few butterflies on my walks in the field, but they won't stop for a portrait.

In the afternoons, when it is no longer chilly, Bow goes outside.

The dogwood is already putting out its showy blossom, although the parts that pass for petals are still green.

Green  dogwood flowers

The dogwood blossoms are really set up to produce drupes, so  it's those little green balls in the center that are the buds which will one day soon bloom into flowers, which in turn will seem like fruit. But the things that look like flower petals now are merely bracts.

But Bow does not care about all that, and he sees no need to rehash it every time the dogwood blooms.

However, Bow does like to eat peaches and cherries and pears and apples, so he does see the usefulness in allowing me to go out and inspect the blossoms in our orchard.

And after Bow has gone to bed, I make another pass, and I get to see the apple blossoms on our brand new apple tree up close.

Beauty can be functional. April flowers can bring us edible fruit later on in the summer and fall.

Pear Blossoms

But for now, we can admire the flowers.

Apple Blossoms

The Subtle Transformations that We Seldom Notice

Everyone notices how cute a baby is.

Everyone can see how much more mature an adolescent appears.

But how did the transformation come about? What were all the awkward little stages? If you read all my blog posts and articles about Bow and look at all the pictures, you can see it happen gradually. But usually when a child grows, we do not notice.

 The same applies to flowers and fruit. Everybody notices the pretty cherry blossoms.

And who could fail to note when the cherries are ripe?

But how did they get that way? Lately I have been noticing some of the intermediate awkward moments, like a green cherry emerging from a pink flower cap.

The flowers on the cherry trees in my yard start out as white. But as they age, they become pink. Then the green fruit emerges, capped with a pink tuft.

Only later does the pink tuft disappear, and you see bunches of the green fruit, waiting to ripen.

Other awkward transformations are taking place all around me. For instance, the redbud blossoms have sprouted little miniature swords.

Those tiny, dagger-like protrusions will eventually become the well known seed pods. And guess what the dogwood is up to? Its blossoms -- the real ones -- have opened.

Remember that I mentioned the dogwood is a drupe? This means the four white petals are nothing but bracts, and the real action happens inside those little globe-like green things in the center. Those are the real flowers, and their tiny stamens and pistils are now open for business.

It has taken me a long time to notice some of these things. It has been twelve years since Bow was a baby and that's how long it took for me to get to the point of noticing when the little true blossoms inside the big false blossoms really open!

Yesterday I encountered another rabbit.

It was a pretty fast runner, so I was not able to observe any subtle details. It might take me another twelve years before I notice anything truly significant about rabbits. By then, Bow will be twenty-four.