3 in 30 - 2002.02.16 Saturday
Today was such a delightful day that the intent was to search out signs of spring. For a couple of weeks now, we have seen brightly colored ornamental plum trees in blossom. The first ones to break out of their winter casings are deep pink, but all I could find this weekend was white ones.
My first stop was this little garden behind a small company parking lot. The lot has space for about half a dozen cars, but space behind it has been reserved for a small vegetable garden. At one side of the vegetable garden is this little flower garden.
The tall red bush in nanten, a relative of bamboo. We have a much larger one in our yard. Pansies seem to make it through the winter and nearby spring flowers are seen pushing up their stalks.
I saw a number of plum trees during my walk, but this one was partially in the sunlight rather than in the shade. All the petals are either white or have turned white.
When we go out for ohanami during the cherry blossom time, such white petals fall like a warm soft snow. On the other hand, the high temperature is only about 11 C. (50 F.), so spending extended time outside sitting around, is not the most comfortable way to spend an afternoon.
Last week it snowed up at Mount Takao where I do ceramics with a Japanese potter.
Down the hill a bit, next to an apartment building that has palm trees reminding me of Arizona, I stood in a parking lot waiting for a couple of cars to pass one another. Not a big deal usually, except that one car was stopped in a wide part of the road while the other passed by.
What was this street you might ask? Simply a local residential street in our neighborhood. The white lines mark off the space reserved for pedestrians and bicyclists. Mostly it is a space about three feet wide. That space available changes if there is a power pole, a shop has a sign out, or people have placed planters outside their houses so they can have green growing plants.