Hi, everyone!
I’m so glad that spring in Rochester waited for me to come back from Europe! The leaves have come out on the apple trees I helped Grandma prune this winter. I think the trees look happy to be the size and shape they are now! It is still colder than usual here, and last week we had a lot of rain! It was windy and cold when Grandma and Grandpa took me to watch sunset at the bay for the first time this year. Nobody else was on the pier to see how pretty it was! On Sunday, Harlan-san and Katie-san came out to help Grandpa put the dock sections out. The water was too rough, cold and high to put in the rails for the powerboat carriage. Grandpa says we can do that on a warmer, calmer day.
I took a walk with Grandma to see the spring flowers at the bay. The purple trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit are in bloom in the woods, and the apple orchards are full of blossoms right now. There were stacks of branches in the apple orchard, so I guess Grandma wasn’t the only person who did winter pruning! Of course, I always like to visit the dandelions, too!
Yesterday, Grandma and Grandpa and I went to Highland Park to see the lilacs. The official festival is all done, but most of the lilacs are just now entering full bloom. Do you think they were waiting for me? Some of the azaleas near the stairs in the park are in bloom, but it looks like most of them won’t blossom for another week or so. I visited my pansy friends at the park, then I spent time with my lilac friends. There were lots of them to see and they smell really nice!
After I visited the lilacs, Grandma took me back up the hill to the reservoir and over to see whether the flowering almond trees and tulips were still in bloom. They were! Four years ago, when Grandma and Grandpa first planned to take me on a tulip cruise in the Netherlands, I practiced admiring tulips at Highland Park. I was happy to see that those tulips were mostly still in bloom — sort of like Keukenhof three weeks ago! I told the Highland tulips all about Keukenhof gardens and their seven million cousins planted there. Then I tried out a new way of going down the stairs at Highland Park!
Love,
Lion-san
Yes, Lion-san it was nice the spring flowers waited for you. Moose-san wanted to make sure to tell you how excited he was when he got your postcard! Nancy-san said she could smell the lilacs when she cut the grass! It looks like it could be a good apple crop this year.