Pretties!

When Sam and I went for our walk the other day I took my camera along so I could get some photos -hopefully to share here -of some of the pretty things I see on our walk-about this road.

One thing that really upsets me on our walk though is that all three of the apple trees down the road that produced such nice apples -and such good cooking apples too, especially for making homemade applesauce -that none of these trees look like they will be giving forth any of their good produce this year!

The early rise in the temperatures in March had many plants popping up and starting to bloom way ahead of schedule and then, from Easter for about two weeks after that, the weather turned cold -very cold as a matter of fact, even including a heavy snowfall too -and that may have been the demise then of the apples from these tree for this year. And that, is really sad for me! I enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the apple blossoms for openers and you better believe I really appreciated those good apples -for free no less -that we gathered up time after time and that I cooked down into some great applesauce that the kids loved and so did Mandy and I too!  I packaged that applesauce into 2 quart ziplock storage bags and froze it and then, as we wanted applesauce to eat, I would stick a bag of it in the microwave and nuke it for a minute to a minute and a half and presto magic, nice warm, really tasty applesauce!

I didn't even get any pictures this year of the apple trees getting ready to blossom either as I had done in past years so I missed out on everything in the season of the lowly but lovely little apples!

I did however get a picture of all the leaves on one of my favorite apple trees -kind of a moratorium, if you will, for what should have been there by this time of the year!

But here's a little tour of some of the pretty things along our walk for your perusal.

 I don't know what this bush is called but the flowers on it look like big old white snowballs -very pretty any way and our neighbor down at the end of our road, Jodi and her husband Tony, have two of these along their front yard in full bloom right now!

As you walk up the street towards my house, on the left side, in Mike and Linda's yard, you'd see this beautiful array of flowers! The colors are so lovely, don't 'cha think?

Just beyond that flower bed and up a little higher on the hillside, is Mike and Linda's house and Linda has all kinds of flower baskets hanging from their big old porch. Doesn't that look ever so inviting to sit out there on a warm summer's evening, smell those lovely different floral scents and relax  -maybe with a large glass of iced tea or hey, even a brewski?

The angle on this shot is far from the best but this is something I really like -a red maple tree! This one is in the front of Daryl and June's yard along side of one of those bushes like Jodi and Tony have too with the big white snowball-type flowers. A couple other neighbors here have a red maple in their respective yards and this particular type of tree always reminds me of the beautiful big red maple that was in the upper yard of my Dad's family homestead up in Morrisdale, PA. Brings back lots and lots of great memories of times with my Dad's family up there in my aunt's side yard. 

Here's two different colors of rhodedendrons that adorn the side porch at Garvey's home. Some day, I'm going to have to get a shoot of each of these color plants and see if I can get them to grow near my house too!

I love this array of the purple rhodedendrons blooming along side Karen's grandparents' home and which was -until about 3-4 weeks ago, occupied by Karen but she has now moved over to State College to save on gas costs to make the commute to and from there every day to work. Miss not having Karen living two doors from us but I love to see these beautiful flowers that greet Sam and I on our walk.

And here we are now, back at my house where the only flowers to greet us here are two Sweet William plants I put in there last year and was quite surprised to see that they reappeared this year! 

All is not lost though as I see the peony plant around the back corner of my house has buds, nice big buds, on it and pretty soon I too will have some really lovely, very showy, bright pink flowers to compete against one or two of my neighbors' plants!

Who knows but maybe someday I might manage to have a semi-organized flower garden too! 

It could happen, ya know. Unlikely as that seems with one who has a black thumb instead of the green kind but I keep hoping --and trying -against the odds!