Thirteen -days- nights after Easter: More night shots of the dogwood we’ve been watching.

I thought the first night shot was so cool that I’d try it again when it wasn’t raining.

Plus, I was taking that first one at just before midnight with my flash set up on a tripod off-camera.

My neighbor, Tom, came to his backdoor while I was out there. He probably saw the flashing and thought something weird was going on.

Not that taking pictures of trees at midnight with an off-camera flash is a perfectly sane thing to do.

They don’t call me “crazy tree lady” for nothing.

Incidentally, we now have nine official guesses as to how many days past Easter it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 days. (Wrong.)

Brad and Heidi both said 17 days — April 9.

Cheryl said 18 days — April 10.

My original guess was 21 days — April 13.

Carolina Girl said 23 days after Easter — April 15.

Melissa said 38 days — April 30.

Jeff from Linden said 40 days — May 2. (Love the symbolism of “40 days.”)

Gabe said 51 days past Easter — May 13, his sister, Hayley’s, birthday.

Happy Sunday! What’s your guess?

Twelve -days- nights after Easter: As promised — night shot of the dogwood we’ve been watching. I was crazy busy all day and didn’t get a chance to shoot my dogwood, then I was at Marcella’s fabulous jewelry party. I barely managed to get this shot before midnight! I love how the off-camera light gives us a new perspective on the texture and shape of this part of the bud.


Incidentally, we now have six official guesses as to how many days past Easter it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 days. (Obviously, my overly optimistic side needs to chill.)

Brad and Heidi both said 17 days — April 9.

My original guess was 21 days — April 13.

Carolina Girl said 23 days after Easter — April 15.

Melissa said 38 days — April 30.

Jeff from Linden said 40 days — May 2. (Love the symbolism of “40 days.”)



Oh Happy Saturday! What’s your guess?

Eleven days after Easter: Can you see the drama of the dogwood watch? From a distance, I would never have noticed that this tree is on the verge of beginning to blossom.

Zooming in on the same picture, I see a hundred bullet pointers! (That’s what pointers that have little round dots on the end are called in info-graphics.) Is it just me, or are you just as excited as I am to see all those dots turn into big beautiful flowers? It’s a yearly miracle!

What do you think: is that the moon above or the sun?

I was trying to get both buds in focus but seriously blur the background.

Shifting just a little in my frame, I get the fireplace blurred in the background instead of the arborvitae. Wow, it really changes the whole look of the picture. Backgrounds, even blurry ones, are SO important!

(This is the picture above, zoomed in really close.)

Months before we started to see leaves emerging, and the coloring up of the petals, and the slightest hint of the petals beginning to open, this one bud was inside that tree, ever so slowly pushing through. I think of trees as being asleep in the winter, almost lifeless. But that’s SO not true! The miracle is happening. I just can’t see it until the dawn of spring.

I wonder what other little miracles like that are happening all around me right now that I’m missing. What else is just below the surface? My dogwood is reminding me to slow down, rest, appreciate the miracle of starting again.


We have five super-official guesses as to how long it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

I said 21 days after Easter — April 13.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 days. (Since that milestone has come and gone, my alter ego is the big loser.)

Brad and Heidi both said 17 days — April 9.

Carolina Girl said 23 days after Easter — April 15.

Jeff from Linden said 40 days — May 2. (Love the symbolism of “40 days.”)



What’s your guess?

Ten days after Easter: The baby leaves on the dogwood we’ve been watching are so colorful! We still have only 4 guesses as to how long it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

I said 21 days after Easter.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 (not a chance).

Brad and Heidi both said 17. Leave a comment with your guess! (Or not. Brad, Heidi and I can duke it out over 17 days or not 17.)

Here’s why I love plant photography: I make myself get out of my comfort zone and shoot using settings I don’t want to “chance” when I’m photographing families (and don’t want to miss a great shot just because I was fiddling around with my tried-and-true settings).

In the one above, I was shooting at a very low ISO setting on my camera (LO.3, which is equivalent to ISO100) at f/11 on full screen metering, which means that the camera will average the light over the entire frame. I usually shoot at low f-stop numbers like f/2 for a seriously blurry background, and often shoot using spot meter, which tells the camera to adjust the light in the frame based on my focal point. This one worked nicely. I think I’ll try that at my next shoot!

Immediately after taking yesterday’s dogwood shot with that f/11 setting, I went to Bradley’s track meet and happened to come up on the coach’s group shot. Cool! That f/11 setting was perfect for that shot! Bradley’s in the center of this picture, but that’s less than a third of the whole team. That’s a huge track team!

I was shooting through a fence, which accounts for the strange light in these pictures. (Still f/11, but the coach is far closer to me than the team.)

So cool when I know somebody on the opposing team! Hey sweetie!

In case you’re new to the blog, Bradley is “the tall one.”

He’s also the one whose entire family stalked him at the shot-put event.

I have no idea what’s going on in this picture. CAPTION REQUEST!!! Leave a comment with a caption that makes us laugh.

This one may have something to do with the previous one. I really don’t know.

** Ok, CONFESSION TIME **

We stood there for, I swear, like 20 minutes in the FREEZING COLD waiting to watch Bradley throw the dang shot-put, and in an effort to pass the time and keep warm, Gregory ran around messing with Mike, and I took pictures of them, and when I turned back around, Bradley was back at the end of the line again.

I COMPLETELY MISSED IT!!!!!!!!!!

wait…



wait…



shiver…



wait…

…Mamarazzi’s doing the happy dance!

Gotcha, Bradley!

Nine days after Easter: I ran out yesterday to snap a few quick pictures of the dogwood we’ve been watching. Thanks to Brad and Heidi, we now have 4 guesses as to how long it will take for her to reach full blossom.

I said 21 days after Easter.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 (not gonna happen).

Brad said 17.

Then Heidi said 17 too. (Copycat.)

This bud has been brutally ripped open, probably by a squirrel or bird. Interesting to see a cutaway. It was probably something just like this that inspired the world’s first cutaway info-graphic.

I like this one because of the blooming honeysuckle in the background. It’s spring!

It’s challenging to keep taking pictures of dogwood buds. How do I keep it fresh? I tried to get a shot showing how windy it was, but it hasn’t worked just yet. Coming soon: nighttime shots!

When I came inside, I caught Kaptain Karl napping on my keyboard! Ugh!

He redeemed himself by posing for me.

“Turn this way, dip your chin slightly, now lift your left paw as if to plead, ‘Come hither, Twirly.’”

Twirly is too agile for the Kaptain.

This was the object of Karl’s affections yesterday.

If only he could get outside.

NOT gonna happen.

This is Bradley’s aptly-named biosphere fish thingie, Tiny Tim. He’s a great pet. Requires ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, except basic daylight, and he comes to you if you call his name. “Tiny Tim, Tiny Tim!”



He fetched every one of those sticks in there. Seriously.

Meanwhile, out by the dogwood tree we’re following…

Eight days after Easter: It was a rainy day today, the eighth day in the dogwood countdown. Thanks to Brad, we now have three super-official guesses on the number of days it will be after Easter that the dogwood reaches full blossom.

I say 21.

My Gemini, overly optimistic, alter-ego says 11.

Brad says 17.

WAY TO GO, BRAD! You’re a KING for registering a guess and making me feel less lonely in my quest for guesses!

See all those seeds on the ground underneath the dogwood? (Feast for a chipmunk.) Thanks to the squirrels (who dump the seeds out by the grubby-little-clawfull) and the rain, my troubled little dogwood (read about her anthracnose and chlorosis troubles here) will be competing with a hundred different varieties of weeds later this spring! Whoopee!

Six days after Easter: This is the day on which we first observe the emergence of leaves on the dogwood we are watching. Pathetically, the pool only has one entry: mine. I am guessing she’ll be at full blossom by Day 21 after Easter. What’s your guess?

Both of the pictures in today’s post were taken Saturday afternoon around 4:30 p.m. See the leaf buds on this one? I love watching trees grow!

As a little bonus spring shot, this is the view from my desk at The Times. Those are Natasha’s flowers. Thanks, Natasha, for the pretty view!

Four days after Easter: This bud is near the top of the tree. This could take weeks!

In case you’re new to the blog, we’re watching to see how many days after Easter my dogwood blossoms. Let’s start a pool! I’ll start the bidding at 21 days after Easter for fully opened blossoms over most of the tree.

Remember Twirly? Bradley says I should make a “wanted” poster with this picture. He’s seriously squirrel obsessed.

Wanted: one dogwood that can survive a winter’s worth of squirrel claws.

Three days after Easter: Did I say I would POST a picture of my dogwood every day until she blossoms, or just TAKE one? Well, in any case, for my dogwood followers, here’s yesterday’s picture, a close-up on manual focus. I have really bad eyes, so manual focus is iffy at best. I love the hint of the crown of thorns in this shot though.

We’ve been watching all week to see if the dogwood might blossom in time for Easter. Considering the fact that she normally blossoms around the middle of April, I figured there wasn’t much chance this year. But we watched anyway, just to see if there would be any sign of life in the winter bud. While she has looked pretty much the same every day in terms of bud-opening, or not opening, she certainly is colorful when we look closely!

The picture above was taken before the sunrise Easter service at my church, at around 6:30 a.m. The golden color is the light in the dining room glowing in the window. She’s not blossoming in time for Easter, but true to my promise, look for a picture a day until she does blossom!

The rest of the pictures below follow in chronological order, generally, through my Easter Sunday, starting with the sunrise service in the church cemetery, above.

That’s Bradley singing in the choir — he’s the tall one in the center in the tie. I promised him that every year after he sings at the sunrise service, I’ll take him to Dunkin’ Donuts. That’s worth getting up at 6 for. No?

The light was beautiful.

But man, it was COLD! Somebody said it was around 30 degrees when the service started.

Love the light in this one too.

In between services, I took the obligatory boys-dressed-up-for-Easter picture. Gregory just LOVES having his picture taken. He sang at the 9 o’clock in a robe three sizes too small. Next year, I promise, Gregory will have a robe that fits.

My choir fully appreciates Brenda, our director/organist, especially after the later services on Easter Sunday when she plays that Toccata for the postlude. I always know it’s Easter when I hear that Toccata. And I love to hear Amy sing “Was It a Morning Like This?” I especially like the lyrics, “Did the grass sing? Did the earth rejoice to feel You again?” Thanks, Amy and Brenda, for being such a big part of Easter for me!

I’m not saying a word.

The senior choir sings at two indoor services on Easter. In between, we are treated to omelettes courtesy of Ramon. (I paid for mine with a picture.)

My omelette was delicious and there were NO BUGS!

All joking aside, Ramon, you are the OMELETTE KING of the Easter feast! Thanks!

After church, I went hunting for proof of spring. Found it in one little tulip on the verge of blooming in my backyard…

…Found it in the games of wiffle ball too…

…and in the bird watching.

Found spring in the outdoor child supervising.

…And more wiffle ball.

I love this picture of all my boys.

Did I mention the G-rex loves having his picture taken? (Not really, but he LOVES being on the blog so I promised I’d get a post done for him as long as he gave me a nice picture! Yay!)

Was it a beautiful day or WHAT?!

Name that park. (That’s TOO easy!)

It’s still cold enough for ice skating.

Bradley is the man of many colors today. From choir boy in a tie at sunrise, to bird watcher, wiffle player, military virologist (yeah, don’t ask, trust me on that one)…

…to slurping jello through a straw in the evening.

I love my family!

Thank you to all my blog readers for taking this “Walk Through Holy Week” with me. I’ll continue to update you on the dogwood until she blossoms. I have faith that she will eventually show us her colors, reminding us of her Easter story, even if Easter has come and gone so early.

Peace, my friends,
jules