Still in the process of opening up, but I loved how the morning fog softened everything.

This was my one Costco-impulse-buy tree, labeled as a Stella ultradwarf cherry that would top out at about eight feet. It doesn’t think so. But at the time, I was helped by a young employee who read the tag on mine as he lifted it into the cart, and in listening to my enthusiasm looked over at the others and decided he was going to buy one too and plant it for his mother. A small cherry tree, she could pick her own, he mused–she would love that.

I don’t know who or where they are now, but I think of them both often when I look at mine and remember that there’s a kid out there who loves his mom and a mom who raised a thoughtful kid. I hope they’re getting lots of cherries, and by now he probably is married and has kids of his own old enough to think about trying to climb it to reach some for Grandma.