I’m going to subtitle this post “Mission Almost-Impossible”.
For many years I have started the year by photographing a particular cherry tree that typically has flowers on it already. It’s in just the right place and must have just the right temperature around its roots to provide it with an advantage with respect to flowering. But I don’t think it’s been an advantage the past two years.
Why do I do this?
Because I love my best friend. And I start every year thinking of her.
This morning she fired the first shot though. She sent me a text and asked “So when do you head out on your Jan 1 mission?”
The thing is, I already knew the tree wasn’t going to provide the usual happiness. Last year the fall was warm and then we had a late cold snap and it hammered the tree. It was one of the first times I wasn’t able to get a cherry blossom shot. So this year, we did a reconnaissance a few days early to see what shape it was in.
Nada.
The tree doesn’t even have buds on it. Two brutally hot and dry summers, and two unusually nippy winters, both at points of sensitivity, seem to have given it a pretty hard hit.
I wasn’t all that concerned because a day or two before I’d seen a pink viburnum bush with a lot of pretty little pink flowers all over it, so I had a backup plan in place.
The problem?
I seem to have then forgotten where the damned bush was.
So today we went for a walk….and, after about 10km of looking…backtracking everywhere I could think of that I/we’d walked the past week, we then went for a drive….to try to do the same a bit farther afield.
Completely unsuccessful.
I swear the thing was within a fairly small distance from home.
The best I would do was a photo of another pink viburnum, one that I knew of, but from which all I could get was a bud.
It was also getting dark so Kirk had to assist me by using his iPhone to light the thing from below so I could have ‘something’ to show for the first day of this new project.
But at least the pink can be seen….so maybe that’s an even better New Year’s blossom photo…..New Beginnings for a New Year.
I’m attempting another 365 Photography Project. It’s been three years since I did one, back in 2020, and that was a year for the record books…I’m not sure how I finished that one given world events and how much time I spent at home. I think I took more photos of flowers that year than I ever have before, so it seems ironic that I’m starting with a flower bud.
Happy New Year all, I hope 2023 is kind to you all, and that it is a year filled with wonderful moments.
Sorry Marne, I know you must be horribly disappointed…..
At the end of the day….we took a quick walk down to the Canyon Lights display at the Capilano Suspension Bridge. A small perk about living in the same postal code as the bridge is that they allow free year-round admission to the park and all of its amenities. It’s a little thing that the owners give back as compensation for the chaos that the park’s visitors cause in the neighbourhood due to the insufficient parking and the overflow onto the residential streets. It can be frustrating sometimes. We avoid the worst of the crowds by going close to the end of the day, when most people wouldn’t visit due to the cost of admission weighed against the time available before the park closes.
