Things are starting to bloom …

I told Merle I'd post these, so I reckon I'd better do it … these are our flowering crabs, as they are called … "crab" being short for "crabapple", the supposedly original apple, from which all our present-day eating apples were developed. Take it from me, you don't want to eat these, although with enough sugar, they make an excellent jelly. These are the same as grew from the seeds that John Chapman ("Johnny Appleseed") spread so liberally (and legendarily) through the early United States … aside from their use in jelly, their main use was in making strong drink … a sort of whiskey, if you will, and some folk persist in making them into strong drink to this day. Depending upon the maker and his recipe, the product can range from rotgut to an unbelievably fine celebratory beverage. Since whiskey or some equivalent was as good as cash, and definitely more available, on the early frontier, John Chapman did the settlers quite a favour.
Howsomever, these are but the blossoms of the trees, and I've caught them quite early, here, most of them are barely open yet. The wind was blowing, although less than in my previous post, but it and the lighting were giving me definite DOF problems, since I was forced to use fast shutter speeds, to stop the motion of the waving branches.
Any road, here are a few … LOL … I shot a great many more than these, but the limbs were waving about a lot, and spoiling the shots.








Well, there they are … I hope you like them.
I plan on getting out again in a day or so, but they're threatening us with tornados, so who knows?
Cheers, all!

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