Signs of Spring

None of the trees in my neighborhood are budding yet, except for a freshly planted, dinky, eager, "rookie" down the street. Already he is showing off. Of course I had to capture him in his budding glory.

And then there's the abandoned, half-eaten, walnut on my sidewalk. My theory: some squirrel located his buried winter stash and found it to be unappealing, moving on to some first fruits of spring. The fact that I found it outside on my front sidewalk is amusing to me--there's not a walnut tree to be found within blocks of my home. 

But the sight of discarded walnuts is not new to me. No matter where I've lived, I've always found that Spring unearthed them. Or, brought forth their sprouts from underneath the soil--left there by some stash-loving squirrel, forgotten, and then nurtured by the rains. Funny what stuff Spring reveals.

p.s. Speaking of forgotten walnut stashes...In my old neighborhood, the guy who bought the house across the street from us discovered a random young walnut tree in the backyard. A squirrel's doing no doubt. Left alone for a couple of years, nature had tended to it. 

There's another young walnut sapling blooming where it was "planted" on a nearby freeway onramp. I smile every time I speed past it.