Plum Blossoms (Wednesday, January 27, 1999)

..... are beginning to open on the old tree that stands outside my kitchen door. There really will be a spring!! When it is as cold as it has been lately I sometimes wonder. The plum tree is very large and was planted about 100 years ago. It is like a magical room inside. You can enter through a little tunnel in the branches and then you are under the high arching limbs which fall to the ground all around. It is a wonderful place. In the summer it is a perfect retreat for a hammock. The cats love the tree, playing tag among the branches and hoping that one of the Little Brown Birds (LBBs) will foolishly pass close enough to be nabbed. The tree is among the very first to blossom here on the coast and is a welcome sight at the coldest, darkest time of year. I've filled vases at home and in my office with the tangled twigs studded with tiny white flowers. There are millions of fat buds waiting to open -- if they get the chance. The LBBs work fast, hopping around the tree and gobbling the buds as fast as they can. On a sunny afternoon the tree vibrates and hums with the busy bees and shakes and shimmers with the endless movement of the birds. Many of the birds who fly and perch around our yard and in the neighboring pastures are visitors -- they will soon fly northward to their summer homes. I will miss them. I especially love the visits of the huge Tundra Swans who regularly arrive in December to spend about three months flocking and feasting in the rich pastures of the dairy farms to the south of us. They have a special spot where they can always be found -- in an emerald swath along the Garcia River, a rich pasture that abounds in frogs and polliwogs, keeping the swans in constant movement as they eat and socialize together. They are a sheer pleasure to watch. Another favorite group of visitors are the Egrets. There are several very tall, stately Common Egrets who resemble the Great Blue Herons (permanent residents) exactly except for their gleaming white feathers. These large birds stalk the pastures, spearing the ubiquitous frogs all day long. Their smaller cousins appear occasionally, but not in the numbers that one sees a little to the north of us, in the Eureka area. There they gather in great flocks, working the lowlands along the coast and retreating to big, raucous rookeries in the Eucalyptus trees about 1/2 mile inland at night. And yesterday I spotted the shy Swainson's Thrush whose plaintive, exquisite song pierces the silence of the woods. This area of Northern California is incredibly rich, teeming with a wide variety of species on land and along the ocean. I will never know it all, but learning about it will easily fill my life with joy.

Previous Rose Wraps Many Changes (Monday, April 17, 2000) Where's Alice??? (Monday, August 16, 1999) Ah, the Celebration...... (Wednesday, May 19, 1999) Long Time, No Wrap.... (Tuesday, April 6, 1999) Is It Spring Yet??? (Wednesday, March 10, 1999) Mothers Day in Mendocino... (Friday, February 26, 1999) Old Blush (Tuesday, February 9, 1999) Plum Blossoms (Wednesday, January 27, 1999) The Dead of Winter (Friday, January 15, 1999) The Old Year Passeth.... (Monday, January 4, 1999) Alba Madness! (Thursday, December 10, 1998) The Weather Again (Thursday, November 19, 1998) El Nino/La Nina (Monday, November 9, 1998)

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White Rabbit Roses
P.O. Box 191, Elk, CA 95432
Proprietor: Alice Flores
Colophon