Springing out

Lord knows there's enough gray around here -- more of that in the next few days -- but at least the orchard is starting to get interesting. The fanciest apple blossoms, for instance, made a pretty ikebana last night when Ben and Ken brought their sweet pup, Toby, out for dinner.

The place would have looked great, except for the tornado that tore through a couple miles north. It trashed two trailers there; here, it took down three trees (one along the main drive), a few dozen big branches and a thousand twigs.

But I think we were all so happy to see each other after so long that nobody really noticed.