Walking Stick in the Garden

Corylus avellana 'Contorta', also known as "Harry Lauder's walking stick" or Corkscrew Hazel, from my friend's garden here at the farm. Picture taken March 9th (before I got sick). I'll try and give you an update soon to see what happens when the buds open!

Venturing Forth into Blogger Beta

I’m going to try and venture forth into the conversion to the new Blogger Beta. In case things get wonky around here over the next few days: consider yourself warned!

Hopefully, all will run smoothly, and soon we will have a new-and-improved Arboreality to explore. Cross your fingers (or your divining rods) and wish me luck!

PS – We hit 200 posts in the forest today – who-hoo!

PPS - If you should have any problems with Arboreality and its changes, please let me know either in the comments, or by email at jadeblackwater [at] brainripples [dot] com. Thank you for your help and your patience during the transition!

Think think think

This tree beside the cottage has a wonderful voice. It always tells you when the rain is coming, and loves to chatter. This tree also loves to listen. Beneath it, the neighbors have planted the roses with other flowers and ferns, creating a quiet little thinking spot.

Arbor Day Tree Blogging

Around the world, people celebrate Arbor Day at different times, but the purpose is always the same: to celebrate the trees.

In my new home state of Pennsylvania, Arbor Day is celebrated on the last day of every April. If you are interested in learning more about Arbor Day, it’s history, and the many dates upon which different countries and states celebrate this special day, you can visit The National Arbor Day Foundation online.

What better excuse than Arbor Day to share a large selection from the plethora of trees that I have gathered for you at Arboreality?

I offer you these tree images in celebration of Arbor Day, and wish you all a wonderful, leafy-green, Happy Tree and Forest Day!

Sunset after the rain

This weekend, our Earth Day was appropriately celebrated with some of the best rain we’ve had to date since arriving in Pennsylvania. It lasted through Friday night, Saturday, and most of Saturday night. I am so incredibly thankful for that sweet, soothing, succulent rain! You know the trees are stoked. What’s that I hear them saying? “Encore! Encore!!”

Now, with the sun setting, the earth is warm, humid, and everything smells of flowers. If you walk out there and close your eyes, all you know of the world is dampness, cherry blossoms and bird songs.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day everyone - especially you, Gaia!

Today, try to take a moment to enjoy the pleasures of nature, plant a tree, hug a tree, pick up trash, write a poem, stare at the clouds, visit a park, look into earth-friendly goods and services, and give thanks for this beautiful chunk of star dust that we call home!

And if you feel like sending flowers to someone special, try this site for environmentally-friendly, socially-responsible flowers, plants, and gifts:

Organic Bouquet

Tree blossom boogie!

With every sunrise a new shade of pink or green or yellow emerges on the trees and across the farm. These colors temper with the passing of the day to awaken an entirely different color the next morning.

The white blossoms you see in the first image belong to a tree along the driveway, near my next door neighbor’s house. I’m guessing that this must be some type of fruit tree, but then again, I have an ornamental cherry tree in Seabeck, Washington that sends out gorgeous pink blossoms, but bears no fruit. We shall have to wait and see what this tree plans to do!

The second image contains the open blossoms from another mystery tree which we explored just last Thursday. Still no clue as to what it is yet, but we will learn soon enough!

You see what I mean about how rapidly things can change?

PS - If you want to see some more fantastic tree blossoms, check out Crystal's blog Wide Open Wonder for her most recent post Flowering Trees & Botanic Gardens.