Searching For Almond Blossoms

The Jewish month of Shavat is long gone, and now we're in the middle of the first Adar of this leap year. In Israel, we expect to see almond blossoms, certainly by the middle of Shvat, about four weeks ago, but this year we didn't.

A couple of weeks ago there was a serious, for Israel, snowstorm, and another is predicted for tomorrow. Actually, last week the experts were insisting that we'd have lots of snow by tonight. Today was supposed to be stormy, too.

But G-d had other plans and this morning we enjoyed an unusually beautiful sunrise. At least I made it to the livingroom just in time to see and photograph it.


Then, instead of a storm, we suddenly had gorgeous, warm spring weather. Just the day to stay home and open the windows and air the place out a bit. Don't forget about hanging out the laundry.

I certainly couldn't stay in all day, so I decided to take a walk and search for almond blossoms.

I started with the almond tree by my front door, not that I expected to see any on its pathetic branches. It's the "Purim Almond Tree." Quite a number of years ago, we've been in this house 22 years, we planted a rooted willow branch from the "arba'a minim," four species of Succot. The tree never really took well; though I watered it as much as I could. Suddenly, one Purim we noticed almond blossoms. Willow trees don't blossom like almond trees, though they have similar longish leaves. Looking carefully, we could see the runty willow growing right next to it. A few years before, someone must have dropped an almond which took root and grew. It's really miraculous, since very few of our agricultural efforts have been successful.


As you can see, it's pretty bare.

Next stop was the next door neighbor whose almond tree is just a few yards or meters from mine, but strangely, it's the most precocious of all in the neighborhood.


I continued walking and found just a few trees showing almost blooms.


Last years's beauty has barely awoken from its winter slumber.