A VERY GOOD DAY

FOURTH GRADE CLASS AND THE ARBOR DAY FLAG

KIDS HELP PLANT THE ARBOR DAY TREE

A GOOD CROWD CAME TO THE TREE P;LANTING IN MEMORY OF JAY

Saturday, 47 degrees F at the ferry dock, 43 on the back porch.  Wind NE, mostly calm with light gusts.  The sky is partly cloudy, the barometer steady at 29.44". The highs will be in the fifties for the weekend, with chances of thunderstorms early in the coming week.  Absolutely everything spring will be blooming within days now.  Another sign of spring: I removed a tick from my shoulder yesterday.  Hate those things!
   The annual Bayfield in Bloom kickoff was a great success.  The Arbor Day Tree was planted with the help of a very attentive fourth grade class, and several dozen folks attended the dedication of the tree to the memory of Jay Cablk, of Jay's Tree Care, who was crushed to death in January by a hazardous tree he was removing.
   The Garden Talk Radio Show drew a large crowd of several hundred people, and their were many exhibitors.  As usual, the show, with call-in questions from throughout Wisconsin and beyond, was interesting and a lot of fun.
   There is always at least one question that stumps the three of us "experts,' and one that I managed to answer yesterday, I think correctly, is rather interesting.  A small town Wisconsinite called in and said he had a tree that had been identified as a lime tree growing in his yard, but it only bore hard little fruits. What could he do so it would produce edible limes?  The audience laughed, and we tried not to snicker, as a lime tree is a tropical citrus and doesn't grow in a Wisconsin yard.
   Then I thought, Linden trees, Tillia species, are called lime trees in Great Britain.  We grow both the native linden, or basswood, and the European little leaf linden in Wisconsin.  Lindens are also very fragrant when they bloom, and bear little winged nutlets, further confusing the issue.  Someone with a British background identified his basswood as a lime tree and he took it literally (and quite mistakenly).