Easter Weekend Flowers

Although Japan appears to have flowers year round Easter weekend is still a very special weekend and a reminder that spring and renewed hope are here. Yayoi and I have seen many flowers, but one of the reasons is that we have been avoiding northern Japan and even more importantly western Japan on the Japan Sea side because they have a lot of snow and it has been quite cold this winter. The east side or the Pacific Ocean side is moderated by a warm ocean current.
I did some work this morning cleaning up piles of weeds and unsaleable spinach that we had pulled and hoed yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny shirtsleeve morning. At lunch the clouds rolled in and the temperature appeared to plummet. I had promised myself the afternoon off to do a bit of flower photography in honour of Easter weekend.
The photograph displayed here is a humourous prelude to what can be seen on Picasa. It is a "tanpopo" and in places in Japan is actually grown as a flowering plant.
The Picasa photographs can be seen at Easter Flowers.