Springtime – blossoms, pruning, and WIND
This is the pretty by-product of spring pruning. Our apricot tree is the earliest blooming apricot I've ever seen and so it was the tree that nagged at me to get the fruit trees taken care of before the tree put its energy into growth that was only going to be discarded. I watched it form buds on its raggedy branches and even unfurl a couple of blooms before I told Louis, "That's it, I'm going out to prune and it sure would be nice if I got some help…" I was trying both to intimate it was his fault and not mine I hadn't pruned already, and, of course, to shoulder the work over to him.
The apricot was in particularly bad shape. We bought and planted our trees before we knew anything about fruit trees but for a vague dream of standing underneath green canopies, plucking apples and plums, eating them like a pack of macaques. We certainly didn't know how to prune. Because of this we pruned not at all, or pruned badly. I'm not sure which is worse. Now (thanks to R. Sanford's book "Pruning Fruit Trees" which I can't find at the moment, did I lend it to any of you?) I know each tree bears its fruit in different locations, on different ages of wood, at different weights, needing different spacing. Even trees that bear the same general kind of fruit may need wildly different treatment. The Kadota fig likes a relatively severe pruning each year, while pruning a black Mission Fig that way would prove disastrous. So it goes with so many trees..and I've gotten a bit better about the whole thing, though you might not know it looking at my poor little gnarled orchard.
Sadly my trees don't look…loved. Especially the trees around the fish pond that for the first four or five years of their lives didn't get enough sun AND we encouraged into strange shapes to keep the area shady. The trees look a bit crippled to tell the truth. We are trying to rectify that, but years of poor habit needs years to be undone. Sigh. The story of my life.
This is the not so pretty side effect of pruning. Though I have to say I feel a bit of pride at having the biggest pile of sticks on the street for once. Too, too often my neighbors have a mountain of clippings, twigs, and weeds ready for pickup, illustrating how much work they've done over the week while in front of my house…wine bottles are more likely.
This morning I woke up to high winds and was doubly glad to have gotten some of that trimming done. Better to have clipped dead limbs from the tree than have the wind rip them off. Besides, I hate being out IN the wind. It is noisy, my hair flies around occluding my vision, it's cold…
Further, the geese honked in terror every time the wind gusted ALL NIGHT LONG. Guess who woke up every time the geese were honking? Another reason to hate the wind. (Though I did end up getting up at 4 am and writing for 3 hours before any one else came into the kitchen, so there is an upside.)
Hypsipyle is recuperating from her night of wild weather by spending the day meditatively bobbing around in her pond with her feathers fluttering and ruffling about her, looking for all the world like one of those glass candy dishes in which you lift the chicken off her nest to get at the goods. Wouldn't a goose on a pool be an even better model for a candy dish? Especially a pretty goose like Hypsipyle.
