Three Seasons in Two Pictures

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In December the orange color of a Bradford pear tree in our neighborhood seemed out of place with snow. Either the tree should have done fall cleaning earlier, or winter should have cooled her heels.

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I was remembering that photo when the same tree, now blooming, had a backdrop of snow on the roof. A bit later in the day, trees and shrubs displayed the snow. The blooms would have looked dirty in comparison. A summer view of that tree is missing. Summer doesn’t share snow with anyone!

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On the first day of spring, before the snow started, I gathered a few sprigs of mint. They were hugging the house for warmth, but they smelled fresher than they will in the heat of summer.

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Our snow put on a brave show. It couldn’t hang on to whiten things up and graciously gave way to spring sunshine the next day.

Published by Anne Mehrling

I'm a retiree who loves to write about life in the mountains of North Carolina.

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27 thoughts on “Three Seasons in Two Pictures”

  1. Those Bradford Pear trees are so beautiful in Spring, but they take forever to shed their leaves. Our last yard waste pickup for Fall is Thanksgiving week. My neighbor had a pair of pear trees for years. She planted them when she moved here in 1992 and those spindly trees grew up tall very fast. I’d be outside in the middle of Winter scooping up burgundy pear tree leaves so they would not clog the sewer drain after a heavy snow and subsequent melt. We had a bad wind, clocked at 39 mph a few years ago. The wind blew my metal shed, that was erected in 1966, right off its moorings and it sailed across the yard, breaking up as it traveled. I hadn’t used it in years – scared of the spiders inside it, but it was painted the same color scheme as the house and looked nice in the yard. Not only did my shed “go”, but my neighbor’s one plum tree lost a huge branch, and the other one split in half. I worried about those plum trees as they waved back and forth in a big wind. Look how big they were in front of her house (orange house) … imagine if they kept growing taller and taller. I do miss them for one thing – the birds would gather there and twitter and tweet all year ’round. https://www.google.com/maps/place/1029+Stewart+Ave,+Lincoln+Park,+MI+48146/@42.2371551,-83.1778672,3a,75y,197.79h,95.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXo-J2ZJS7CUyQbUrV_yd3w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x883b36da4c0253d3:0xd098c31180764602!8m2!3d42.2369586!4d-83.1779843

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      1. 🙂 and if you peek to the left of 1029 and zoom in on 1023 Stewart, Lincoln Park, MI (me) you can see the silk flowers in front of the house and along the side of the orange house (Marge’s house) which I am going to download and send to you. Aren’t those pear trees huge? And I think that view was 2013 – they’d be even bigger now. That split was right down the middle. The tree cutter came and he took the tree closest to my house down and he let it “go” without paying attention and it took out my pole lamp address sign. I was glad to see those trees go – every time the wind blew, I pictured it coming down and catching the side of my house.

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          1. You can move the page up and down and put it closer, but what I don’t like is if you are trying to hone in on directions, or a specific address, it doesn’t always take you there …. if you search my address, it goes off to the side and not in the middle.

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              1. It was nice to see your house and the tree, plus inside your house too – who plays the piano? If John has choir practice, does he play the piano or sing? It is nice to peek into people’s lives after they write about them in their posts. With the Google maps – you try to enlarge it goes all over the place –
                when I was looking to pinpoint that Secretary of State’s office to go for the license renewal, I could not figure out the nearby stores or streets, so resorted to the dry run, but it worked out as I just went four miles away to lovely Heritage Park. I will go back there again in the late Spring to see if I see ducklings and goslings as it is more wide open than Council Point Park.
                I see goslings on the pathway, but the ducklings and cygnets are hard to see in the water as there are so many trees and reeds.
                I never went to Heritage Park in the Spring before, but follow them on Facebook and they tell what is going on and post pictures, so will know when it is time for the wee ones.

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    1. Bradford pears are tiny, inedible things. The trees are purely ornamental. I’m not aware of apple trees in this neighborhood. We’re on a lower slope of a mountain where people have not lived before. In our valleys there are apple orchards with lovely fruit.

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  5. You’re lucky. We had 12 inches of snow yesterday (keeping in mind the original forecast was a maximum of 2″). It’s warm and melting fast but it’s still white out there.

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    1. Grandson Nathaniel was chatting with John on the phone at 5:30 this morning as he shoveled out his dad’s car on Long Island. It was still snowing then. I’m glad you got only half the snow you were promised.

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  8. What a truly magnificent photograph of the tree in the snow! So beautiful.
    Nature is just incredible, isn’t it Anne. She does what she does in a way that leaves us in awe.
    Thank you for the share Anne. 🙂
    ~ Cobs. xxx

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