仙台 えいごの教室

   This time, the story comes from our garden!

  We have an almond tree in our garden. Every spring, we enjoy its beautiful flowers. Have you ever seen almond flowers? The shape is really similar to¹ that² of cherry blossoms, but the color is a bit darker and the size is quite different. Probably, they are about 4 or 5 times as big as³ those of cherry blossoms. And also, they start blooming slightly earlier than cherry blossoms.

　

   

  In the first few years, we often heard people’s voices from outside saying⁴, "Wow, beautiful! I wonder if⁵ they are cherry blossoms?" Every time I heard them, I always wanted to tell them what they were. However, now we hear "You know, I heard they are almond flowers." We and people who regularly take a walk around our neighborhood often have conversations outside and we were asked by so many people what kind of flowers they were, so now people know what they are.

 

  Unfortunately, after it bloomed this spring, we had to cut down the tree! It started leaning over⁶ the road where people walk and it reached to the point⁷ where it was for sure going to fall down some time soon. We were sad, but we had no choice. It was for safety’s sake⁸. 

 

  Then, about 10 days after we cut it down, one teeny tiny⁹ sprout came out right below where it was cut! We were so happy — but soon after that it went through¹⁰ another difficulty. There were some bugs who like new "soft and delicious" leaves and started eating them. Fortunately, the energy of the tree was much stronger than that. We found a few more new sprouts coming out close to the bottom of the tree really vigorously¹¹. Now, we think that the tree can survive! Yippee!

 

 

  Now, we are relieved¹². We are happy that next spring again we can hear people’s voices saying, "Look at these almond flowers!"