My friend Sue, recently home after two years abroad, put out a note that today was going to be Pi Day and she’d left her pastry blender behind in South Africa; could she borrow one?

Sure!

And so she was the other person who stopped by yesterday, briefly, but it got me thinking I wanted to celebrate the day, too. I had prefab pie crusts in the freezer and could cut to the chase instead of the butter.

Last year when we had so many tart cherries on our tree, I pitted and bagged them by the quart so that they’d be the right size to pop right into a crust. I grabbed a ziploc out of the freezer this morning.

But it was the season’s remainders and the amount a bit random, about half, which explained why it seemed so small.

Well huh. I’d forgotten about that.

I rolled the crust out very thin and lined four large ceramic bowls with it: two for cherry, two, peach slices, and, just for fun, folded the edges down galette style. They took about 45-50 min at 350.

Each of the four Mel and Kris cereal bowls served two.

Meantime, on the peregrine front, Grace the falcon is trying to get that gravel just so for the eggs that are about to arrive at City Hall. She’s had several tiercels (males) fighting for the territory and her and one was the victor long enough to get a name and possibly future progeny–only to be ousted the next day by a new new tiercel.

Who so far is TT, for, The Tiercel. Much bonding has taken place and he’s definitely the victor of the year.

They’re really going to have to give him his own name before they start naming the eyases (babies) to come.

Friends dropped by for a visit; we hadn’t seen each other in awhile because we’ve been doing church by Zoom so as not to expose my mom when we finally get to go see her, but with Tony’s death they just needed to come make sure everything was okay.

We’re fine, no worries, great to see you.

She’s an avid gardener so I showed her the littlest apricot seedlings: This one’s a week old, this one’s a few days.

They’re so cute!

Aren’t they?!

I offered her one for their condo patio and she’s considering it. But then she made clear what she really wanted: to know when the peaches at Andy’s were coming on, because I’d given her some of those last year and she couldn’t wait to go buy more.

We are looking forward to it together.

Tony and I couldn’t talk politics at all, but we could definitely talk fruit trees with enthusiasm.

I’m pretty sure he would have loved watching one of my apricot seedlings grow up, knowing he was nourishing something both rare and the best to be found. He loved to cook, and he would have done really great things with those in a few years.

But it was not to be. Last night our Italian friend peacefully passed on at a ripe old age as his beloved garden was starting its new season of blossoms and green and fruit and growth for his wife and daughter to hold him close by.

It was in the 50s today, chilly for new seedlings, but here it is. I get such a kick out of baby trees, and rare ones especially.

I pointed the camera at the other one whose small Root Riot plug had been planted inside a paper cup to give its first root some room: I couldn’t really see anything, but maybe the camera could.

There it is. On its way.

Note that the ones in the paper cups are the two that had been attacked by green mold or fungus or whatever it was, of which there is no sign whatsoever now. The direct sunlight really did cure them. All the seedlings I lost to rot the last few years and that’s apparently all I’d needed to do.

But I had to know to, which is why I’ve been making a bit of a point about it in case someone happens to stumble across a single one of these posts at random.

The beginning of the season, of new life, nature taking first breath to offer oxygen to us.

Pictures taken yesterday and today. You can see the sprout forming to the right and the white root of a root that was not there Monday, newly anchoring, sustaining, becoming.

Just a little more soil right there to make sure it doesn’t dry out overnight.

In case you don’t hear back from me right away tomorrow.

Last week we were 15-20 degrees warmer than normal and it was quite pleasant.

This week, not so much: the mango tree has just started a major flush of growth, which means the buds are about to burst forth and some may have, and now it’s under layers of frost covers against possible freezing tonight (she typed, thinking of all those peach blossoms, too.) It’s cold out there. It was cold all day despite two layers of sweaters and a working furnace.

And so of course tomorrow is the day they’re turning our power off from 8-5 to upgrade the electrical system in our neighborhood. The fridge and freezer must not be opened, no food will be heatable. Oh you were going to be working from home? Not Wednesday you’re not.

I haven’t worn thermals since Alaska, but I’m going to. The hot cocoa’s going straight into a thermos first thing in the morning, and I’m going to need it after uncovering that tree out there.

But we did get a hundredth of an inch of rain last night with this cold front and that’s at least something.

I just read the fine print on the notice: shutdown may be canceled without notice due to weather or unforeseen circumstances.

Meaning, if the power is on you still don’t dare open the fridge because that might be right when it cuts off. Or totally not. Come on, guys, how hard is it to shoot an email to a few dozen households?

So we’ll see how it goes.

The plum tree has decided to start joining the party.

As for the two Anya kernels that had been showing a bit of green mold so I’d given them up as likely lost (but had kept them from drying out just in case), I put them out in the sun yesterday and today during the hours when it was warm out there. Having swelled up to show above the top of the soil before getting infected, they’d at least tried, and I halfway held onto that as a good sign.

I was quite surprised at not seeing the green bits anywhere tonight and what is left of the mold has retreated markedly in size as well as color.

As for the kernels themselves: one of the ones that had been infected has started to split open to sprout, which I did not expect at all. So it looks like I’ll have two out of the original three make it, and who knows, maybe the third one will surprise me, too.

Who knew it was that effective? Sunlight really is the best disinfectant.

After writing last night’s post, it bugged me in the night that I hadn’t yet done everything I could, so the first thing I did in the morning was to get my last Costco pot out and one of the new bags of lobster soil. I transplanted in another dormant apricot seedling. While it still was.

What surprised me is that the locally produced topsoil it had been in was hardpacked so tight that the water I’d given it yesterday had never made it through to the roots; apparently it was just absorbed by the fabric bag I’d wanted that tree-let out of. No wonder that other one over there looks so blackened. Yow.

One of the selling points on the lobster compost is that it retains moisture but not so much as to rot the roots. I’d read that and thought, well, that’s spin that’s trying to claim it both ways.

But in actual use this past year that’s turned out to be a pretty fair description after all of how it treated my plants. Either way, today’s seedling now has good soil and a good watering and we’ll see how it does.

Then I ordered another threesome of pots–which is a bit ambitiously wishful, since I have two more seedlings but only one looking alive. But there are three new seeds gestating, and while only one looks promising, it does and I’m holding it to it. The pots are not huge, but they’re big enough to grow an apricot to a giftable size while staying a light enough weight that I can manage lifting them. Including over next to or even in the air-conditioned house if it hits 118 again this summer. I want them to get to grow this year.

So: two yearlings (hopefully) and one new-to-come: I’m ready for them.

Or I will be after the next Costco delivery.

Having had such huge success with the 46″ tall Anya-offspring apricot seedling that was planted in lobster compost last year, two weeks ago I transplanted two of the ones that had come out so tiny into the stuff. One was 4″ tall, the other 6″. I wasn’t sure they’d even survived, and then I accidentally ripped a few roots despite all I could do as I moved them.

I had more bags on order but I could at least do those two.

From what I’ve been able to read, for an apricot branch that loses its growth tip, that’s it, that branch won’t grow nor even sprout out any side branches from its lower nodes until the next year–and that’s certainly how it was for mine. The severe heat last summer did some serious crisping.

Two weeks into their new digs, a week of daytime warmth, and guess which yearling burst out with the green first? The not-dead-yet 4″ one, and there are hints of green on the other. They’re ahead of the ones that got no lobster. Even though their roots were messed with.

So here’s my one that’s starting its third year: it likewise started off tiny and stunted and then played catch-up last year, making it to 26″ only because I didn’t know you shouldn’t do summer pruning and I was trying to keep the two sides at the same height.

And then I found out why that had been a mistake.

But its success is why I was sure the little ones were worth keeping trying.

There are three more small ones, two of which I expect to do fine and one that…it will be a surprise if it does, it looks pretty black, but we’ll see.

I have a friend who told me he’d love to have one of those apricot trees. I figure first I have to get it tall enough to remotely look like at least a bush.

I have high hopes.

It’s February. It hit 80F.  This is not normal. The air conditioning kicked on. I realized I had done repeats of 13, not 14 on the hat project and it was totally not working and after wishing for about two seconds for it to be something other than what it was, I started the ripping back, unwinding the tangling intarsia work slowly, slowly. I knew better and yet I’d done it wrong anyway. All I’d needed was to be a little less sure of myself and doublecheck. Well, okay, now I have.

But then seeing the first three peach flowers of the year opening up by evening and all the buds ready to pop where there had been nothing but gray dormancy a few days ago was just so joyful that it made up for everything, and I can’t wait to see how that tree looks tomorrow.

And the next tree. And the next one.

I chased away a squirrel that wanted to snack on the little pinknesses. Some things never change.

A Shaun the Sheep ad for wool, just for fun and so I can find it again.

Remember when I named a lace pattern (after not finding it anywhere else) Rabbit Tracks? Search engines having had their limitations in 2003, I looked for pictures of actual tracks made by rabbits to see if it fit and found no definitive answer–drawings in children’s books didn’t count–so I just went with it.

Well, I got a little help today after looking a little closer at the lace pattern certain claws and teeth were making in the mud out there. Again, it wasn’t quite definitive but it looked like a decent approximation. Alright then.

My yard looks like it has chicken pox and I’ve never seen anything quite like it out there.

So I had this post hopping around in my head gathering momentum about how I guess the whole rabbit thing is okay because they’re eating the weeds that I’ve been trying to fight off ever since the first time they told us not to water our lawns for the previous drought. The grass died. The weeds held a rave.

Worse: a few years ago, my neighbors planted an invasive but decorative tall grass that grows in impenetrable clumps with a bajillion poofy seeds that fly off like dandelion puffs, and all the sudden last summer it was everywhere in my back yard. Everywhere. Despite zero watering. The roots go deep and I found out the hard way that the stalks rip your skin off if you don’t wear gloves and when they’re growing under the thorns of the low-branching pomegranate tree and threatening to outcompete its roots, I had me some doubt as to how far this was all going to go.

Apparently, non-native flora or not, those rabbits really go after the stuff.

And the grass, our grass, real grass, is actually starting to make a comeback because the critters don’t touch it.

I was thinking, hey, I can live with that, as movement caught my eye and I looked across the yard.

A third one.

All in view, point A, point B, point C.

Three. And spring is a long way off yet.

Yow.

Well, they’d better get back to work, then, those shoots aren’t going to get any younger nor more tender. (LEAVE MY FRUIT TREES ALONE.)

The California Coffeeberries are in full bloom.

The tall Anya apricot totally gets this changing seasons idea. (And if it’s this big growing in a pot from a seed in January, how big would it be with two years in the ground?)

One of its siblings, less clear on the concept, just started pushing out another new set of leaves. Well okay maybe.

Given the dozens of cartons of them in our driveway every Christmas when I was a kid that Dad had had trucked straight from Florida to our house for a fundraiser for charity, I thought I’d post a picture for my mom of my seven-year-old Page orange tree. A serious windstorm blew through and stripped most of the leaves away but it is determined to get some offspring out into the world. By the looks of it I don’t think it’ll get another chance after this. Can the fruit sugar up without the leaves? I’m doubtful, but curious. They’re supposed to be quite small but not that tiny.

Meantime, as I type this, I realize the hat I was working on today is the colors of the Page’s yellows, greens, and a bit of the dirt below. Of the skeins I bought yesterday, that one was immediately compelling and I had to write this to find out why.

The eye department couldn’t fit me in all on the same day for all the testing they wanted to do in answer to my query Monday, so after going yesterday I came back today to see just the technician for that last test.

There was the standard question yesterday of, do you have any new allergies.

Dr. S. mentioned by way of reassurance that he’d gotten that same fiery red rash from that brand of heart monitor, but it had faded away after a few days.

We were having a mutually surprised moment: you needed one, too? (How could you be old enough..! Answer: we’re sort of not. But him even less so, and I at least have lupus as an excuse.)

He was fine, he assured me, they were just checking.

He was quite delighted with the homegrown pomegranate. “Look how BIG it is! I love pomegranates!”

Coming through the door on my return home this afternoon, the answering machine was just finishing up.

It was Dr. S.

He had gone over that visual field test’s results. (Immediately, clearly, rather than waiting till the end of the day to get around to the paperwork. He’d wanted me to know right away.) It had taken a little more energy for me to see the flashes on one side, he said, consistent with the optic nerve having been narrowed by what appeared about 25 years ago to be optic neuritis. It had changed since last time, but only a little. From all he could see, there was nothing to worry about–but come right in if anything changes or you have concerns.

And then his voice sounded more emotional than perhaps he’d intended. “I’ll see you in a year. Come back in a year. Thanks.”

A promise that he would be here and that surely I must as well.

I felt that.

I appreciated that, and wished he had held off two more minutes to call so that I could have gotten off the freeway and grabbed that phone in time to say, and you, too. All the best.

To life!

Twenty-one rows and the start of the third set of branches, a trip to Andy’s Orchard where I got some of the last of the fresh figs of the season–SO good–and some dried Blenheim apricot slabs for my mom, and a visit this evening by friends bearing homemade goodies.

I went outside and cut a pomegranate off my tree and told them to come back for more later–they’re good now, but they’ll keep ripening and get even better.

I sent them home with a bunch of those figs, too, because they love them as much as I do and there were so many in that box and it would be criminal to have them not be enjoyed at their newest and best.

Meantime, I’m hoping the (already stratified) cherry seeds sprout that their son decided needed saving for me because the cherries I gave them from Andy’s were so good a few months ago. They haven’t yet. They’re in nature’s time zone. I’ll just have to wait.

We’re still in summer drought mode here and there was no plant at the edge of the porch whatsoever, much less a weed. Two days after the workers sprayed all that water off the roof, there were two and I immediately ripped them right out.

And then took this picture just to show what weeds are like in California. From zero to this at the end of its second day from seed (or roots I’d previously missed.) The invasives are always the fastest, and they were already close to grabbing your socks with prickly, snaggy, stabby seeds.

A happier but far slower plant is the Anya apricot that surprised and revived. This was taken exactly one week after the first hint of green showed. I need to  keep it warm and growing all winter (hopefully!), since it lost most of the summer to shock.  

Meantime, I made it to nine-something of my usual twenty minutes’ exercise last night, sat down, recovered for half an hour, tried again, stopped at five, sat down, and finally did a few more to top it off because I’m stubborn like that.

Which is why they’re having me come in tomorrow to wear a heart monitor for two weeks. Having to answer to you all meant I had to answer to me meant I had to answer to the cardiologist, so I did, and thank you.

And you know? If you turn that weed up there sideways clockwise, it would kind of look like the blood vessels on a heart. Of a green Grinch.