Flowering trees

There's not a lot going on at the Watanabe house.  The skies are gray with rain but it is warming up.  In a day or two the cherry blossoms will be gone so I got out my camera as I was coming home from crosswalk duty.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not even sure if this is a cherry blossom tree...  This might be plum blossoms.  I took this photo from across the street shooting from my car window and I'm not very good at identifying flora.  But the tree is still pretty even if it doesn't have a name!  It is sort of variegated, pink and white mixed in the same tree.  And I like the big Japanese farmhouse with its red roof next to it.  And for some contrast, how about some neighbor pedaling over to the garbage station with his household garbage piled on his bicycle.  This is a pretty common sight actually as garbage is community collected rather than from each house.

 Let's go back to the pretty tree.

There are all sorts of kinds of cherry trees actually... the whitish blossoms, the deep pink hanging blossoms, and in another day or two there will be leafy blossoms meaning that the blossoms and the leaves of the trees come out at the same time.  Not as loved nor as beautiful as the traditional cherry blossom trees but still a reminder that spring is near.

Oh...  while I'm at it... Here is a left-over shot of our trip back from Matsushima last weekend.  We stopped at a temple and the gardens were bursting in blossoms.  The temple overlooked the city and the seaside...  Temples near the sea traditionally seem to have been built in the highest, safest places so that residents can seek refuge when there are earthquakes and tidal wave warnings.