No Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree

For those of you who did not grow up Mormon, "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot tree" is a peppy little children's song about spring and blossoms on fruit trees. Last year my aprium (interspecific hybrid between an apricot and a plum, but basically it looks and tastes like an apricot) was so thickly covered in faintly blushing white blossoms that it was easy to see where a child might make a mistake about it being popcorn. This year, the tree looks like this.

Just one lone blossom in the middle of the tree. I kinda guessed from my relatively low gas bills that we were having a warm winter. Well, the winter tomatoes were a big hint, too. And those bananas that keep getting closer to ripe. But I had hoped it would not be so warm that my fruit trees wouldn't get enough dormant time to produce fruit. Unfortunately that appears to be the case. But maybe only for the aprium.

The nectarine and plum are blooming nicely, and the pear and apples look promising as well. I didn't hold out any hope for the cherries until this week. There are only a few varieties of cherry that will fruit with less than 500-1200 hours of chill time (air temperatures below 40 or 45 degrees, depending upon whom you ask). I have a pair that are supposed to need 250-400 hours. Did they get it?

Those look like baby cherry blossoms to me.

Aside from the lack of apricots, we don't seem to have had any major garden losses over the winter. Well, except for the incredible disappearing brassica seedlings. Time and again I planted them- cabbage, broccoli, etc. Tme and again some pest or another ate them- chickens, snails, crickets, maybe even mice/rats. Don't they know I need to eat my veggies, too?