Apple of My Eye!

When my daughter moved to Cedar Springs in the late fall, I was intrigued by her next-door neighbours—an orchard filled with what I believed to be apple trees. After taking a photo of the trees—

I vowed to take pics in every season. The photos would make a unique pictorial display for my daughter and son-in-law. This was my plan, of which they were well aware!

But, we all know what happens to plans, haha! Read on!

I visit them once a week in Cedar Springs but those days often held overcast skies and gloomy weather. I longed to take a photo on a sunny day with blue skies. Maybe with a cloud or two. Since I couldn’t be there for the picture-perfect days, I’d ask my daughter to take a photo for me to later check out. Here’s a pic of when my daughter trudged through knee-deep snow to take this “matching” photo for me in the winter. Great replication!

 

She did an awesome job and I was very pleased!

Now, I longed to capture the moment the trees were in blossom. I had noticed that my own backyard apple tree had new buds appear about ten days prior to the orchard’s trees. Keeping this in mind, once my tree blossomed, I asked my daughter to humour me by taking a pic every couple of days, to try to capture the perfect shot.

In hindsight, this was deemed essential. By my next visit, the orchard was indeed in full bloom. However, one of the trees at the very front of the row had been completely stripped of its blossoms during an extremely windy thunderstorm. When I saw that, I ventured into another field to take a photo of its trees in bloom just because I wanted to see their beauty. However, that was not the photo I desired for the photo display to match the others.

Nonetheless, there had been a problem. I received a frantic call from my daughter shortly after another of my requests to wander to the orchard for photography.

“Mom, something bad happened!”

What could be “bad”? I hesitantly asked, “Did the orchard chop all the trees down?”

“No, the trees are still there but your picture is ruined, Mom!”

No! That couldn’t possibly be! What had happened??

Apparently, a large blaring sign had been erected right beside the row of trees.

I persuaded my daughter to just take the pic anyway as the trees might not be “perfect” in three days when I next visited.

I’m not the best at re-touching. But, this will do for now. After all, I plan to snap a pic of the trees laden with red apples in the fall. Great photography can depend on so many factors . . . I wonder if the orchard owners would mind if I moved their sign a little further down the road?

Happy picture-taking, my friends! Seize the moment!