French Pussywillows

Day 105: After the ice storm debris was cleared from the roads, I went for a drive to assess the extent of the damage in Flatland. On a side road, I discovered a number of French pussywillow bushes, one of which had lost a limb approximately ten feet long. The tips lay on the ground, the broken end still hung up in the tree beside a deserted driveway. A fortuitous find, I could not have reached the branches otherwise. I broke off several twigs and put them in a Mason jar in the hopes of rooting them, a project I've done successfully once before.

These are not the small pussywillow which is often found growing in local fields. The French varieties have catkins as large as the end of my thumb, tightly packed at the tips of the twigs. The branches are less supple than the common variety which probably accounts for the breakage.