An expensive year for fruit

Once these were new baby green leaves. Now they are dead.

Yesterday I was in a bad mood. One of those grumpy funks that you get into once in a while, the sort of thing that you feel like you need to get away from everything in order to get back to your normal, evenly-tempered self. By 4:15 I hadn't taken a lunch break so I decided to go home, change my clothes, and go out for a walk rather than hamstering away yet again in the smelly gym.

I changed into a bright red zip-up hooded sweatshirt and one of two pairs of jeans I currently own that a) fit, and b) don't have holes in them*. I decided on what we'd have for dinner, made a mental list of needed grocery items, and put a bag in my pocket (reuse is good). And I headed out the door and up the street, looking for signs of spring, for anything to help me feel better about the world and my life and all that crap.

Usually, this time of year there are things blooming. This year, not so much - everything started blooming a week ago, right before our big snow storm. Then everything got frozen in the storm. The flowers that were buds during the storm? Dead. The flowers that bloomed right after? Daffodils, especially, faced the ground all bent over under the remembered weight of heavy wet snow, despite the sun. I got to the park and walked around the perimeter, trying to get my heart rate up while keeping an eye out for things to photograph. I saw a stuffed lamb in a tree (a beanie baby, maybe?) and a few daffodils that weren't actually touching the ground. I shot the one plant/tree/bush that looked like it had actually put out some green in the past week (most of the new growth on everything had been frozen and turned to brown or yellow crispness). I shot a tree that looked dead against the gorgeous blue spring sky. And as I headed out of the park and down the street to the grocery store, I found a tree that hadn't budded before the storm, though some of the paperthin baby green leaves had charred-looking edges.


Stranded toy



Just about the only green in the park. Note the curled edges.


Someday this tree will have leaves on it again.


Note the buds, the fresh leaves, and the brown edges.

As I was walking home from the store, I shot this:

1990 called, it wants its mall hair back.

And remember the photos in this post and then here?


Same tree as the last two times

I took this photo on my way to work this morning. As you can see, the flowers are dead. There was no time for anything to be pollinated. Dan told me he heard the trees on the western slope (where most of Colorado's produce is grown: peaches, plums, etc.) were budding before the storm, and most of the flowers died. This is going to be an expensive year for fruit in Colorado.

*Then, last night, the jeans developed a hole. Guess I'm going jeans shopping this weekend.