Saturday, March 28, 2020

March Magnolia.

3-28-29 SHORT HILLS: Our early spring continues unabated. We had another 0.9 inches of rain with more predicted for today. VT got nine inches of snow when we got the rain. In Millburn I saw a guy mowing his lawn yesterday.

It’s nice to get outside and escape the flood of bad news about COVID, especially on the warm days like yesterday when I did the driveway and driveway drain cleanup and pruned some winter kill. A few days ago I raked the back patio and yard by the house to get rid of the sweet gum tree fruit.

If you’re not familiar with them, they are brown balls with a prickly surface that get land on everything beneath the tree, including shrubs and sleeping dogs. They’re hard to rake up because they spring away from the rake somehow. Anyway, after I triumphed over that small part of the yard, I looked up at the tree, Liquidambar styraciflua, and saw that it still has ten thousand more to drop, and will start a new crop next month.

Somewheres in that ball are seeds, and squirrels do occasionally eat them when there’s no sunflower seeds from the bird feeders available.

Has it occurred to everyone what a bad leader Trump is? He acts on his fantasies as if they were facts, ignoring the advice of the experts, relying instead on his sycophants and cronies. This has happened a lot in the past three years, but now people will die if there are not enough respirators. Trump delayed and waited before ordering fewer than will probably be required.

Initially he denied the existence of the pandemic and then said he thought it would be over in a few days. What bad judgement, based on what he wishes for! And the plan to end isolation on Easter when lots of places will be becoming hot spots is insanity—all to save the stock markets.

Now how did that get political? Well back to important stuff, I’m still dreading a late snow storm here, even in the first half of April.

New blooms: Yoshino cherry, pear, saucer magnolia, marsh marigold.


Saucer Magnolia is just getting started and is still very early this year, as is everything else.

Flowering pear tree is usually the first of the spring fruit trees to bloom, usually deep in April.

Another early tree is Yoshino cherry, this one just has a handful of flowers.

More of the Magnolia.

Sweet gum tree fruit or 'gum ball' is the size of a walnut. The seeds are rumored to have anti-viral activity!

Sweet gum tree, Liquidambar styraciflua, festooned with gum balls.

The whole gum ball machine.



No comments: