And they are home.

While, over here…

Michelle set her alarm for quite early so she could start orange rolls for breakfast for Sam. John and Richard got up quite early so they could pick her up from the airport. Sam beats everybody on earliness because the only flights from Alaska in December within reach had a six-hour layover in the middle of the night in an airport and then a red-eye here.

Food and festivities and we had an absolutely wonderful day, laughing much. We all got to see Madison across the screens in all her sweetest, sleeping cuteness. (She took his mommy away for a day. Hudson is wary. Give him a day.)

Richard opened Holly and George’s gift of their hammer dulcimer and his eyes got huge. He repeated quietly, all day, I am blown away. I am blown away. I am blown away.

I was chuckling just now, typing that, and he said, reasonably enough, Well, I *am* blown away. I am!

I am, too, but I knew what was all wrapped up over there, and the stand to go with. We hope to do the gift justice, and he gave it a good start by practicing for a good hour quietly as we all chatted.

Sam fell into bed at 7 pm. John helped some more and then did likewise at eight after being on his feet working on the food with Michelle for hours and she was ready to do likewise when we left her place. We got home, Richard sat down a moment, and fell instantly asleep himself.

Well, *somebody* has to get this room ready for the carpet installers coming at 9:00 am. And I had the easiest day, certainly.

After two hours of that, I’m ready to fall into bed myself. It wasn’t just this room–I had to move everything out of the way for them to pull the piano and heavy couch into the other room.

I sat down a moment to take a break and go tell the blog our new granddaughter’s name while hoping everybody else had such a wonderful, perfect day like we did.

And that’s when it hit me. I still have to get all those tubs of yarn stash out of the closet–they’re doing that part too. Okay, a little more to go and then I call it a night.

Holly of proseknitic.de arrived today with her husband; I finally got to meet George! Given that they live in Germany, time together is a rare and wonderful thing much less getting to see both.

Richard had to leave in the middle for a doctor appointment, and before he left from there he called: would a follow-up on this date work with my calender?

Holly said, He’s a good one, and I said, Yes he is!

And while he was gone George slipped outside a moment himself. She’s got a good one, too.

Richard made it home and so we carried on. Fresh-pressed apple cider all around. They took their leave, we had dinner chez Michelle, and then we had a little last grocery shopping to get out of the way, not wanting to go anywhere near a store on Christmas Eve. With me pleading fatigue, the menfolk dropped me off at home on their way to Costco.

Yup. They left me alone in the house for just long enough. I can just see Holly and George grinning right now reading this… I thought about it, cut up a white sheet of paper, wrote FRAGILE–twice–and added it to the bright gold paper.

And since it was a Costco-sized roll of wrapping paper, it’s on its second Christmas, just about everything’s been wrapped in the stuff (again), there’s still a lot left, and nobody has noticed a thing.

Bwahaahaaa. With a huge side of Thank You!

He was dreaming that I’d gotten up and after 34 minutes he finally rolled over to turn that stupid alarm off himself, growling inwardly at my forgetting to–and there I still was, sound asleep. Oh oops.

Made it through the traffic and rain to that doctor appointment on time by the skin of my teeth.

Which is why I was 2/3 of the way there before I realized that in the rush and the quiet of the house I’d forgotten to grab my hearing aids. Oh goodness.

I was mortified, saying, and honestly so, “I never do that. I *never* do that!” The nurse laughed it off and was wonderful. The doctor, thankfully, had a deep voice and knowing his patient’s deafness well he pulled up a chair to face the opposite direction while being close in and I only had to ask him once to repeat himself. Blessings on the both of them.

Got home in time to do some quick sprucing up (now there’s a good Christmas-centric term for it. Douglas firs, no for some reason but spruces, yes–I guess some trees are just the fir-tunate f-yew, the rest can balsam) before some friends dropped by. They left in time for us to get out the door for our haircuts to be ready for Ryan’s wedding coming up before Gwyn of the most-perfect scissors goes out of town. Got home, grabbed a quick bite (have you had anything all day other than that sliver of birthday cake? No, me neither. Here let me grab this so we don’t shop hungry) and went to the grocery store. Got home in time to grab another quick bite and get ready to go see a friend who just lost his mom after a supposedly routine surgery last week. Yow.

While we kept an ear out for our phones to hear if our granddaughter had arrived early like her brothers had.

Life.

Fourteen hours after that alarm I’m finally actually sitting down at home for longer than ten minutes. Oh wait, hold that thought…

I should have been clued in when a certain someone started working on organizing and clearing his electronics projects from the kitchen table.

I should have been clued in when Michelle came over, got out a clean tablecloth, and harassed her dad gently for not having the table ready to put it on there yet, but then, I’d been encouraging the same step forward myself, so, hey.

My birthday was over and done with, a good day enjoyed much and that was that for the year.

Not to them it wasn’t. Lee called it a flash mob surprise birthday party and that’s precisely what it was. Chocolate cake from The Prolific Oven, a goofy headband-hat thing put on my head first thing, ice cream, Martinelli’s apple soda, dairy-free cookies for Michelle, the co-conspirators had thought of everything.

Phyllis (Lee’s wife) had already doorbell-ditched flowers a few days before, which was birthday surprise enough. The lilies in that arrangement were in full bloom and the heavenly scent totally covered over the stopped-up sink behind us that thankfully wasn’t too bad yet. There’s still a towel kept on the floor because the icemaker on the fridge still has that slight and random leak.

My daughter, niece, husband, and they and a lot of other friends were in on the whole thing and Christmas season busyness or not, they totally pulled it off.

When Richard got up this morning the ganached cake in the fridge was a little smaller and there was a slice waiting at his place on the beautifully clean table on top of a second fresh cloth, last night’s having been put to its appointed use. “Somebody loves me!” he crowed in delight.

Yes, honey. Someone sure does.

(Yes there are pictures. I had been outside chasing after escaping styrofoam peanuts from unpacking the mango tree before it got any worse (and STAY in that bag!)  I’m sure there was a spiderweb or five and I had not so much as brushed my hair out yet. No you can’t see.)

Last night thankfully we decided to stop by home before running one last errand for the day–because when we turned that car off it stayed off and that was that.

Today the Alphonso mango tree showed up at noon as planned, the one thing I had so wanted out of my day and there it was! We immediately planted it in the paper pot up against the house in the alcove of the patio, the most protected spot it could ask for while it recovers from its long truck drive, with walls on three sides while still being outdoors.

Then we were finally ready to call AAA. The tow truck driver determined that the main Prius battery was fine but the 12v that powered the dash and locks, not so much, and jumped it.

How often does one jump-start a Prius. I know.

Now, when you drive a hybrid, the motor turns itself off when you’re idling so as to conserve energy–not such a good idea when you’re trying to recharge a battery, so, Richard asked me, Freeway time! Where do you want to go? Nothing too close!

It was his idea to offer to go to what is my favorite bakery, the one in Burlingame, and we were off. He circled the block, car still on, while I ran in and bought what I wanted, and then off to the Costco in a different town–with me quietly hoping we would run into someone we knew. We did. Old friends. We were so out of context in that place that the guy didn’t think it was really me at first till he saw me talking to her.

The car has been running ever since, my tree is beautiful, I told Dani it was here and he was as thrilled as I was, (the friend from India who knew exactly what the most perfect variety to get was), we Skyped with our sweet grandsons and talked to all our parents and the kids and laughed that,  no, looks like the baby wasn’t going to come today after all. We’ll just have to hope that Parker, too, gets to keep his birthday all to himself next week.

And life is good. And I am aiming for 10:11 12/13/14 to hit post on this. How many birthdays get that as an option?

(Edited: Hah! Never did update that time stamp after the time change. But it really was 10:11…)

I woke up this morning and grabbed my glasses. Through the clerestory windows I watched the tops of the trees duking it out with the near-hurricane winds.

We’re at 3.84″ of rain with another .5″ to go for the day, and then next week it will rain again. We just need snowpack in those Sierras, too. I’ve been watching my downspouts going crazy and wishing we had the means to capture our roofprint’s worth up there.

And so we stayed out of that and at home, grateful for power and heat, listening to it rain, rain, rain. The water came up a foot in our street. Not as bad as the happily boogie-boarding kids in ’98 and the homes across the street with water up to the electric sockets that we had then but threatening to be. The storm drains are old and long overloaded and one neighbor waded out into that water to see if he could save those homes from it and he quietly cleaned the leaves out of the way, here, here, here and if a fourth spot needed it he did that too. We would never have known except that another neighbor ratted him out online so that everybody could thank the guy.

One friend who did leave home said there was water sloshing right over the center divider on the freeway.

I’m fine with marveling over the photos rather than experiencing that sort of thing in person.

Our mail service has had issues, as I’ve occasionally mentioned, sometimes major issues, but today our guy was totally a hero: he came at about 7:30 pm despite the fact that most of the roads between the main post office and here were shut down by flooding and fallen trees, including the road it’s actually on. We heard him and I ran for a rain jacket and struggled to get it on fast enough and then called out into the night as I lifted the lid on the box, “Thank you!”

He answered from over next door, “You’re welcome!”

The CSA (community-supported agriculture) guy made it in, too, dropping off our farm-to-fridge veggies in the dark of the early morning, and in honor of his effort I had to use his greens at their peak. Fresh-picked red chard. Strip the hard thick lower parts of the stalks out of your way, saute the greens in a bit of very good *EV olive oil, that’s all it needs. A small amount of bacon bits topped it off in a perfect winter dish against the cold.

And who knew that slicing ripe Hachiya persimmons in half and roasting them at 450 for fifteen minutes would give them a texture and taste like Thanksgiving sweet potatoes with marshmallows melted in. Peel the skins off that were holding the stuff together and there you go.

It was a thought and a whim and something I will definitely do again.

They must have run out of the spinach that had been on this week’s checklist. They keep making me try out new things. Rapini greens? Looking at the bunch, I’ve never eaten…spikes…before. It’s just the smaller leaves acting all edgy like that, though, y’know, ’80’s punk style.

Not that I’ll mind breaking out that olive oil again.

———

*EV–extra virgin. By lax Federal law, an imported olive oil can be labeled as such no matter what its actual grade as long as it’s food grade, but California requires that if the olives are grown in this state, the bottle must contain what the label says it does. Buy Californian.

It was dark and rainy out so this time I gave her a call first rather than just knocking on her door.

“I’m a bad neighbor.”

She did a doubletake–What?

I explained that I’d torn the plastic cover off the magazine that came in the mail, thinking, oh, they sent me a free copy to try to get me to subscribe (given that they’d pitched me an offer just a day or two before in the mail) and so I’d started reading it.

Then I went, wait a minute…and looked at that plastic wrap again, looking for the label. “It was your magazine,” I told her– “and then I read it anyway. It was Consumer Reports. I’m a bad neighbor.”

She laughed and told me I could read it any time and I said no, it’s yours.

She wanted to walk over so I wouldn’t have to get my hearing aids out in the rain and I wanted to show her the new apple tree and so I stepped outside anyway with a wool hat on and we met up in the middle. I handed her her mail and as we chatted we walked around to that tree (well, stick) right next to our property line.

Tart. She loves tart apples. This one will be so perfect.

I explained that given how invisible the little thing is in the dark, I didn’t want people walking into it, so that’s why I’d skewered this (now bedraggled, wet, droopy little) piece of white paper across the top.

“Is THAT what that is? I’d been wondering!”

We rolled our eyes at the fact that our mailman misdelivers between our two households multiple times a week–it’s been a regular, ongoing thing, but when she growled a bit at his incompetence I laughed and told her, I want to thank him, because we get to spend all these times talking that we would miss otherwise. (Adding quickly), But I wouldn’t want to give him any ideas!

Given that our by-mail meds went to her last week, it was a very good thing for us that she hadn’t flown out of town.

Yeah…

I wish the guy would do his job, I mean, how hard is it? And I’m glad he doesn’t. Just don’t tell him that.

A little more medical product testing today (the gizmos, not any drugs) which means I got to thank the good folks at that place: a few minutes there for my lifetime’s and my childrens’ and possibly grandchildrens’ lifetimes’ worth of the best mangoes out there. Quite the tradeoff.

Richard, on vacation, was having a grand time tinkering with gizmos and ideas towards keeping that tree warm when it gets here. Plumbing-warming coils going up the trunk? Here, he showed me, a thermostat with this and connected with that he could get…finally he grinned and let on that the old-Christmas-lights idea was actually quite a good one.

Whatever we do it’ll be because it was the best way to do it.

Went off to knit night and Juanita was there and it was so good to see her and everybody else. She pulled out her Schacht double-treadle, the wheel of my dreams (I have my plainer-jane Ashfords, sold to me used as a pair twenty years ago) and she starting spinning fleece into gold as I knitted and thought about how long it had been since I’d really put my Trad to major use.

I showed her my blue shoes that didn’t quite entirely match my outfit but they did match my project; I told her I’d found the way to get the thing done was not to have my clothes clash with my knitting. She laughed. And thought a moment. And went, yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

Another hour and a half and I think I’ll have this one Christmas present nailed and mailed; meantime, just in case, you never know, given how early her brothers came into the world, I checked my phone before I left Purlescence.

Nope. Not yet.

No hurry, little one. Take your time.

Almost as much rain in the last two days as all of last year. Flood advisories have been in effect.

And yet, when the sky held its breath a moment I did finally risk it and run an errand today. I could have waited a few days but it just felt like, go.

Which means I was in the right place at the right time to run into a woman I hadn’t seen in several years, a widow of my parents’ generation. “Marilyn?!” It did us both good.

When I pulled back into my driveway, there was–this is getting to be a daily occurrence–my Cooper’s hawk right overhead, free from any corvid harassment this time, simply seeing and being seen. Loved it.

Back to work. I wondered if I should join the ends of a scarf that came out a tad short and call it a double-over-able infinity scarf for a niece? It was a Stitches splurge two years ago and one skein was all there was or ever would be. (Handdyed cashmere, people.) I should ask Morgan what his youngest would think since it’s in her color. She’s old enough to take good care of it. (Handwash. Tepid water. No agitating around.)

Tomato plant: this is the one that sprouted three weeks into September that the squirrels planted. Now I just have to keep them from it so I can begin to guess what the variety is as it grows. December tomatoes! I guess I can’t complain about how it’s been 15 degrees warmer at night than the norm for weeks.

Anyone with any experience growing cherries, meantime: do you get individual flowers per each growth bud in that cluster of four or do you get clusters of flowers from each growth bud? I assume the single ones here and there will be next year’s new limbs.

Half the fun is watching and finding out but I wouldn’t mind flipping ahead in the book.

So FedEx said last week that my columnar apple tree was supposed to arrive tomorrow.

I happened to have someone here today who was digging the hole for me in preparation; schedules being what they are, this was when he could do it but I could hopefully handle it from there.

Yeah, and that’s what we did with the Page tree and I don’t think I mentioned here that I actually briefly knocked myself out cold doing that. One good push on the tip of the shovel to widen that hole and suddenly I was on the ground facing the other way, sprawled over it and scraped up with no idea how I’d gotten there. None. I still don’t know.

I was quietly not eager to do that again.

While the guy was digging the FedEx guy went past him and there was a thump at the door. And there was the Stark Bros box! My gardener took great pride in being able to put that thing in the ground himself and being a part of it after I told him why I’d ordered it, and so, it is done. (He works for the lady next door, too. He was very pleased that it was for her to be able to pick apples again.)

I thought about it tonight and impaled a piece of white paper at the top of it so that people wouldn’t walk into the little thing in the dark and the rain.

So much rain. Such needed, wonderful rain.

A little later I stepped out in the back yard for just a second–and heard the birds. Looked up in time to see the three of them passing directly overhead, and whether the two were crows or ravens I couldn’t tell from below.

But they were chasing my Cooper’s hawk out of my yard. They looked flimsy, he looked massive, but he was outnumbered.

He swooped up and into the redwood just across the fence; one veered off to I don’t know where but the other divebombed him again and again, daring him to strike out or take it, always threatening, never quite landing talon or beak on my bird. Who sat there and watched the show for awhile.

Finally, tiring of it, he took off but unfortunately in the general direction of yonder persimmon tree and suddenly we had the two of them hard after him again.

Go Coopernicus go!

And thing the third…

I had signed up to be notified. It had been several months and it was winter (albeit an unseasonably warm one here, even for California) and I wasn’t holding my breath, but this evening suddenly that notification came in: the seven-gallon size Alphonso mango trees were back in stock at Top Tropicals. I double-checked quickly with Richard.

This is the variety that the local ex-pats wait for cases of via the once-a-year plane from India, too fragile for supermarket distribution, picked that day and flown straight here. The one that Dani swooned over and told me passionately that if I didn’t plant one, “You will never know!”

And now we will.

I emailed him a thank you.

Almost immediately another Alphonso tree got sold and they were almost gone. Word was getting out.

I went outside this morning to set out some suet crumbles for the wrens, the juncos, the white-crowned sparrows and the towhees: the ground birds.

Coopernicus appeared out of nowhere (hawks are good at that) and fluttered at ease down to the top of the tomato cage to get a better view.

He was relaxed as he watched me.

I, not wanting to scare him away, though, rather than being interesting, froze in place, marveling: he had never before come closer in while I was outside. In no way was he threatening me out of his territory nor was he in any hurry; he looked curious, is all.

The angle of the sun had his chestnut feathers and gray wings in the best light–all he needed was MJ telling him he was gorgeous and has he been painted? Photographed?

Having said hello, he lifted off easily after a minute or so in a bird version of ambling away.

Meantime, on a more down-to-earth note, a well-aged UFO got excavated and finished today because someone asked if I might have a rustic, handspun, undyed, earthy-looking yarn? They were helping set up the annual Creche Exhibit and I had just the thing–it just happened to be attached to a project that only needed 3000 more stitches.

Had I done that particular math I’d have just broken it off and handed the ball over and reattached it later if later ever happened, and if not, eh. That project was a UFO because it and I were not friends. Handspun and rustic? Definitely. There were enough really thin spots that I never did trust that yarn to stay in one piece. After four years, a bug could have contributed, too, but the ziploc looked clean of such.

It and I were less friendly after the second big madly-running break suddenly showed up. I repaired both, finished–that thing on my needles was a ruffly scarf? Who knew? Washed and laid it out ever so carefully, carefully to dry, no tugging.

And boom there was the third. This one is definitely not gift-giving material.

When it is dry I will fix it. (I tried not to resent the Christmas-queue time spent.) Oh well. *shrug* I wound off a bit from the remaining ball to use for hopefully all repairs it may ever need from here on out, and when they come to pick their yarn up I will tell them sweetly and firmly to never, ever bring it back in my sight.

Hopefully that scarf will be good for more than bird nesting after this.

And while I was fussing with all that, I got an unexpected email from my friend Mari in Wisconsin who’s been fighting breast cancer for some time (get checked!) She validated my grumping without judging, heard me out, and offered perspective.

I wanted to be a better person in that moment.

Hers was the true gift-giving material.

Okay, y’all, I am writing this down for me. Not for you–shoo, run along, go read the ad for the drunk kleptomaniac pet kangaroo that beat a burglar senseless (but didn’t run up the home insurance rates because it wasn’t dogbiting!) and that needs a new good home. Cheap! But only to a serious animal lover! Steel wallboard a plus.

Me, I’ll sit here quietly transcribing this for the ages. My ages. Because, as she reminded me while trying not to quite say it, they’ll be coming down on my head in no time, but meantime…

Sunday School was going on and two people were in that room who were clearly sick–so I quickly excused myself and sat down around the corner instead on the steps to the stage, glad for my knitting. I don’t like the sense of exile; I don’t like the germs; I do like staying alive. Should I have been reading scriptures to be a good example while being a bad example to the random eight-year-old going by? Ya wanna make something out of it?

Okay, then, in baby alpaca/merino/silk it is, the essence of softness in heathery royal blue, and I sought comfort in pretty yarn and good intentions of the season. (Hey, Morgan, now that I’ve already started this, what are your girls’ favorite colors?)

MJ, just a little younger than my mom and not in class just then either, came up to me.

“Have you been painted?”

Doubletake. Have I what? Surely I didn’t hear that one right?

She repeated, “Have you been photographed or painted?”

Total head tilt.

“Because you’re gorgeous.” I looked around to the other side to see who she was talking to, and I meant that.

So did she.

She asked me how old was I going to be next month? (We’re fellow December babies.) She described a little of what aging does to one’s face; I told her I’d had skin cancer off the top of my head and in the surgery had accidentally lost my grandma eyes, but I assured her I had had grandma eyes and said with a grin that I missed them.

“They’ll come back,” she nodded, and said I had it just right right now and someone needed to photograph or better yet paint me as I am. Right now, at the peak of perfection, basically.

This from the most-original-60’s-version-Earth Mother I have ever had the great pleasure to know. I so was not expecting a conversation like this. She was quite serious. (It dawns on me at last, proofreading this, that her late husband had been a serious photographer. The connection clicks: she was missing him a lot today after spending Thanksgiving with family with him absent and I didn’t catch it in time to remember him to her. I will now.)

I told her helpfully that my sister Anne was a professional water color artist, and with that she was satisfied. “Have them take lots of pictures,” she counseled me one last time before she headed for Sunday School, for Anne to work from or for my grandkids to marvel over later or to convince me or what I wasn’t entirely sure.

That stupid hair I was fussing over this morning while wishing I were way better at fussing with it?

For today, it totally would do.

Okay, y’all can come back now, I’ve put the vanity mirror down. Did anybody snatch up that kangaroo offer?

Yeah, I went out there. But not to the malls.

Phyllis wanted to beat the crowds so we got there at nine. Meaning that while other people were out Black Friday shopping the 6am-noon specials, we were at the San Jose Harvest Festival with guest passes via Mel and Kris and having an easy time of it.

Phyllis and I both bought some of their pottery (no surprise) and they offered to hold it for us so we wouldn’t have to lug it all around, since we’d just gotten there.

Mel happened to mention to me that some of their customers had asked them how to keep squirrels away from their birdfeeders, now that they sell ceramic hangers stuffed with fleece from their sheep for birdnesting materials.

(And wasn’t that piece a birdhouse? That was new.)

“Bubble wrap,” says I.

“Bubble wrap?!” as he started to envision…

Kris blinked, “Yeah–their claws…!”

And the light reflections and the fact that it doesn’t hold still and I’m still waiting for that first loud pop.

“GENIUS!” He added, “Did you think of this yourself?”

“Only took me five years,” I grinned. Or five decades, but never mind.

I found the pomegranate folks again; I said to the woman, Remember how I told you the bottle I’d given my daughter had been bad? (She’d apologized that they must have accidentally handed me the opened demo bottle last year and she’d replaced it when I saw her in San Mateo.)

Yeah?

Well, she absconded not only with the new one but with some of the other stuff, too.

So I was there to buy a new batch and we swapped mom stories, our kids being the same age, and she laughed when I said with just the right amount of teasing petulance that my daughter was “Just going to have to buy. her. own! next time.”

She said the show special was one of everything they had there plus this many of the less-expensive items, your choice, this price. I bought not only that but another three of the fruit spread. Yeah I could mail-order it. No I didn’t ever get around to it but once this past year. So my goal was to buy what I wanted for the whole coming year (as if!) But I could try.

We turned to go and I glanced back just in time to see her do an overhead high-five with the guy she was working with. Caught! More laughter. Priceless. And good, I hope they do a fantastic business, Skylake deserves it.

Bought great olive oil from the couple that owns those trees.

We left when the crowds started picking up, stopping by to pick up the pomegranate box–more teasing both ways, more laughing–and then to Mel and Kris’s.

I still have two more to go before I have a dozen bowls to match the number of plates and mugs, but at least I’m now closer by two. Another toddler mug against the day of breakage and a spoon rest.

That bag looked big but I didn’t think anything of it.

I got home and started putting things away.

Wait, what?

I pulled a big box of Ghirardelli chocolate squares out.

I found a paper bag with a note from Kris.

There were handmade soaps and lotion from the milk from the goats on their farm.

Those big grins on their faces, if only we’d known. I love it. They totally got me.

Should have thought of this years ago.

Weird light reflections. A (very faint) smell Nature never made. The edges randomly flying up when a bird flutters down nearby and probably making a squeaky sound when they do.

Nothing has dared yet actually step on the stuff but I’ve seen some grand leaps sideways in avoidance.

We had been having so many squirrels of late.

Bubble wrap. That’s all it took. Just for a little while, while they re-learn some manners. I popped a bubble or two going by but resisted the impulse to squish them all–gotta leave some to do their job.

Maybe the peach clamshells next Spring could use an outer liner against raccoon prying–Christmas packages will be coming soon and let’s hope for no packing peanuts this year, I have other plans.

Meantime, we staked out the Page orange tonight and made it ready for a tarp come hint of frost. The weatherman says our nights are still eighteen degrees warmer than the norm but the fuzz and the fat on the squirrels and the layers of sweaters on me say that no, it really is getting chilly out there.

May tomorrow be warm with laughter and good folks and good times shared. Travel safely. Happy Thanksgiving!

If you have room for a pot, you have room for one of these new-variety trees, although you’re going to need two for pollination if there aren’t any other apple trees around–but aren’t those cool? Eighteen to twenty-four inches across fully grown, eight to ten feet tall.

Our next-door neighbor’s Gravenstein, a locally-famous old variety, died some time ago and she was lamenting to me the other day that she misses it still.

Between our properties there was once a towering but dying pine tree  just over on her side. We had been concerned it would fall and the direction it was most likely to fall was on our house. Taking it out, though–one guy knocked on my door wanting seven grand for the job. Gack.

Then came the time in ’03 when I was in the hospital trying not to die of my Crohn’s disease the first time. Our neighbor’s response when she found out was to want to do something: so she picked up the phone and got that monster tree cut down.

We like having that part of the front yard opened up. And yet… It’s been long enough that the pine roots are pretty much one with the soil now.

Twenty-four inches and straight-up growth. It won’t block our way, it won’t block her gate and outgrowing its space will never be an issue. We can put it just to our side of the property line and still have plenty of room, and Stark Bros tells me that my other apples on the far side of the property will be all it needs to produce.

These won’t be Gravensteins but they will be tart ones; I went for the Tangy Greens to keep the critters disinterested. I have friends in the area with a Granny Smith that their squirrels leave alone.

The tree ships out Monday and with Fall planting they say the roots may well make enough headway for it to start producing the first year.

We’ve already told her they are hers for the picking. Anytime.

And then I told her why.