As American as apple pie, apple blossoms are the prelude to a great growing season. After a long, cold winter, gentle pink and creamy white flower petals on tree branches are like an answered prayer!

As soon as we get some warm, nourishing rains, we watch the apple trees bud out. A magical transition is taking place in the north woods.

A hummingbird flits by. A robin sits on eggs. Morel mushrooms perch pudgy and low around the apple tree’s base. Frogs sing in the marshy distance, and the whitetail doe is looking for a place to hide a fawn.

Apple trees are native to Asia, but our ancestors rehomed them into the fertile soils of Upper Michigan. If you travel the rural back roads, I’m sure you will see some long-forgotten homesteads and farms out there.

A robin sits in an old apple tree. (Karen Wils photo)

Weather-beaten wooden shingled cabins and collapsing barns are all that are left of some places, but behind ruins, apple trees bloom!

If only those old apple trees could talk. What great stories they could tell of trappers, lumberjacks, fishermen and farmers. Apple blossoms symbolize love and hope in literature and poetry.

Apple blossoms are like a whisper in the wind and a gentle kiss. After much anticipation, the tree finally explodes with tons of beautiful flowers! Their fragrance drifts off across the country meadow. The tree is a humming with bees and birds.

And as soon as all the petals popped out, they flutter away on a warm spring breeze all too soon.

Planting apple trees is a Yooper tradition. So many families have planted them around their camps, cottages and farms in hopes of feeding wildlife and making an apple pie some year.

An apple tree in the backyard is often a place where the family gathers for birthday and graduation pictures.

Many people like to buy and plant apple trees in memory of a loved one that has passed away. Some cemeteries are scented with apple blossoms now.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, a special time when we recall and appreciate the men and women who gave their life for our country. It is good to have some quiet time among the trees.