I keep daily track of the leafless tree in the picture above because it grows right outside the Spencer Alley kitchen window and because the complexity of its seasonal cycles makes it more kinetic and attention-grabbing than its neighbor trees. Today was a somewhat dark winter day in San Francisco, but the dim yet glowing light was what showed me red buds (below) all over the delicate twigs of that tree. Its winter dormancy has ended already, in other words, and the season of springtime, for this tree, is here.
