A “berry” good walk!

Thursday
I’m gradually getting caught up on my back blips! We were glad to see the sunshine today, we’ve had far too many grey days lately. We got out to enjoy it in the afternoon at Spring Grove cemetery and arboretum, where there’s always so much to see, beautiful trees and shrubs, lakes, beautiful statuary, birds and occasionally deer. It’s also where many of the city’s important people have been buried over the years. There was an abundance of berries everywhere (hence my title), but to my surprise there wasn’t much evidence of the birds eating them. The berries in the top right are from a new tree to me, a Possumhaw tree! This is a member of the holly family, native to the US. As you can see, it is conspicuous in winter, with its many, small, red berries along leafless, slender, gray twigs. Since there was no sign of the berries being eaten, I wondered at the time, whether maybe thy were poisonous, but the internet tells me that opossums, raccoons, other mammals, songbirds, and gamebirds eat the fruit.
This evening we had church choir practice - all 7 of us - 1 soprano, 1 tenor (Roger), 1 bass, and 3 altos! People are out for various reasons, one couple were looking after a grandchild this week, one has had surgery and has to keep off her feet, and several I believe are Covid related, people quarantining having been exposed to it.