The squirrels helped plant these. Pictures taken in the morning; I stopped working last night when it got too dark to continue.

Some of the spreading ground cover-y-looking plants were still nearly flush with the dirt but they didn’t fool me anymore: I now knew their seeds are velcro spiked with a sharp blade each (see picture) and the taproot runs amazingly deep even at that stage.

Carefully find your way under the entire circle of leaves to as close to the base as you can–it grows runners and from one plant to the next, the leaves can be like felted wool together and hard to separate. But you can’t leave any leaves out–you have to be under all of them.

And then pull as hard as you can. A spade might not get it all.

That taproot will be anything from a few inches long to well over a foot but sometimes you can unroll a whole mass of interlocking plants that put too much into the spreading and not enough into the rooting and take a whole group roots and all.

I thought, I bet a raccoon would kill for these: a feast with all the work done, as I looked at a particularly thick 15″er. Potato tartare. No way could I leave this stuff out for even one night, and I packed those weeds down hard, several paper grocery bags’ worth. Out onto the curb.

My back is sore, but the thought that kept me going was picturing Madison crawling across what used to be grass before our drought began.

We left yesterday morning for the trip southward and got back well into dark.

This evening, after two days of not being out in the yard, there were not just flowers with bulges at the bases but actual cherries, lots of cherries and there will be more as more petals fall away. I am utterly smitten: homegrown cherries on our own tree for the very first time ever, with some branches just starting in on the whole process. The third year’s clearly the charm.

The old Yellow Transparent apple was gray and wintery-bare Saturday with one single hint of life that is now a fully open flower at the end of a gnarly branch. So much more now. We will have cooking apples in June.

Inside, I finished a soft MadTosh merino hat but missed my chance to hand it off to the person who will give it to its recipient. There will be more days. He doesn’t know it’s coming and the anticipation of the surprise feels so sweet.

Trying to figure out how to get produce clamshells over all those cherries–or not–I think I definitely need to find some unsweetened Koolaid packets. Dilute them in water with no sugar, and an orchard back home near Camp David when I was a kid sprayed it on their cherries to make the birds reject the taste and leave them alone. I can only hope the squirrels and raccoons (who can tear through bird netting if they’re determined enough) feel the same way.

(Edited to add, I just found a review on Amazon by someone who spreads unsweetened Koolaid in his lawn to keep the Canada geese out. He said it MUST be Grape. Alright then. Grape it is!)

The first Babcock peach of the year, with quite a few smaller ones coming along.

So. Friday afternoon the phone rang. It was the repairman’s company with a quote at last on that part.

I had expected they might pad the retail price showing on the Maytag site ($143) but I was staggered. They affirmed to my disbelieving ears that what they said was what they meant. They wanted two-hundred-*what*?

Wow. That and what we spent replacing the panel and lock a month or so ago and we could have paid for a whole brand new dishwasher!

Okay, so we could still have done it ourselves: but we didn’t even know for absolute sure that that was the only thing wrong with it, he hadn’t been about to tell us, and we’d thrown an awful lot of money down that hole already. Three control panels, three door locks, four or five silverware trays and two circuit boards already, and still it tried to burn down our house.

The favor he didn’t know he was doing us was shocking us into wanting to feel like we were done with this mess forever and that we were better off paying one big lump now and finally getting it over with. And so today we drove to San Jose to where there was a floor model to look at and we ordered our super-reliable 500 series recessed handle, three-level, etc etc. It was even on sale. Good timing.

In other words, that guy totally put the ki-Bosch on our ever having to deal with that Maytag again.

And our new one will be SO nice.

Happy Easter, Passover, and Spring!

New flowers on the sweet cherry–we’ve gone from only at the very top to continuing on down. I feel like I can never get enough of those flowers. Some of the earlier ones are starting to throw sweet confetti.

Top, right, and left, I’m trying to give a better sense of the whole of the mango. The new buds at the top? They weren’t there at the beginning of the week. We had a three-day heat wave and it actually hit 94.7 degrees yesterday–in March. So strange. The plant life took off all over the yard.

I have no idea how many actual mangoes, if any, we’ll get this year but it looks promising and the honeybees are definitely trying their best.

I was ecstatic: I’d done the taxes and I’d done them in under four hours. This has never happened before. Richard knew of one other number we needed–and it was right there, page two in the stack. Done.

The Meyer lemon burst into bloom in celebration–there were no flowers yesterday, but, look at it now. 

Crumpled sharp-edged eggshells around a trunk or stem are the easiest, most benign way to keep snails and slugs out of what you’re trying to grow.

And so I had to make that chocolate hazelnut torte. Had to. My future fresh-picked peaches depended on it.

Today’s Sunday School teacher, whom I happen to be married to, was talking about the parable of the sower who tossed his seeds along the ground as he walked, hoping for a good crop later. You’ve probably heard that one.

The text was read and then the poetry of it was discussed, metaphor by metaphor, soil types, marauding birds (what, no squirrels? Do you know how fast they dug up the sugar snap pea seeds I put down?) the part about the lord of the harvest saying, no, don’t pull out the tares or you’ll uproot the wheat along with it, let them keep growing together till they’re ripe. The growth habits of rye and wheat plants were mentioned and we had a visiting rancher from Wyoming on hand (what were the chances!? Never seen the guy before) who talked about how they are mechanically separated now at harvest with the machine being able to tell which is which.

Cool. Learn something new. While part of me was wondering, two thousand years later they’ve *still* got their seeds mixed?  Couldn’t be by much, surely. Clearly there was a lot more to ask the guy but it wasn’t the time or place.

Then the general query was thrown out there: So what did it all mean?

I raised my hand and pronounced: Having planted a few trees this past week, if you want them to produce well then by golly you’ve got to have slimy earthworms and chicken manure in there.

The tall man standing at the front of the room was amused as the room laughed. “Slimy. Earthworms. And chicken” (we were in church, the only word I would dare use there and that he would ever use anyway) “manure.”

Yup. Every life has to have some for the person to grow into the best they can become. It’s all just part of how it is.

The first Fuji apple flowers burst into bloom today–and yesterday I couldn’t even find buds, I looked.

The Stella cherry. 

Pushing around half-barrels full of soil and plants (fig, raspberry) the last two days to test sun hours may not have been my best move–I woke up at dark o’clock in shooting streaks of oh-no-you-didn’t. Wait, *I’m* not the one with the bad back.

Come the morning I took it easy and sat up straight and did all the right things and as the day went on the twinges faded out.

Y’know, I’ve really badly wanted all week to plant that Gold Nugget mandarin and it’s not healthy for it to stay in that small nursery pot too long, thought I. Dinner was ready to go. Richard wasn’t home yet. I picked up the spade–okay, that felt pretty much okay–and walked over to the spot the two of us had agreed on.

Just like the one time I’d tried before, that hardpack seemed utterly impervious to anything I could do to it; the metal tip wanted to simply ricochet off.

Just one little bit to mark the spot? This was one chore where I could simply stop any time if I needed to. I even had, once.

Yeah who was I fooling. Suddenly I was finding that it was just that top layer that was difficult, it was beautiful, soft soil underneath and there was the spade sliding right on through it. All those years of accumulated buckthorn leaves had done some real good over here and the earthworms I encountered thought so, too. I didn’t hit the water line this time.

I picked up the pot (okay, that was pushing it a bit) and set it in the hole a moment to see how it was coming along. Ideally, I should dig wider; it was wider than I thought, though. Ideally, it should be deeper. Actually, I was going to have to fill it back in a bit. And since it’s not all clay here the roots should be just fine.

Richard got home and let me drag him out there to be part of the final decision process. He didn’t tell me I shouldn’t be doing this quite yet; he knew how badly I wanted to. It’s just one day and then we have a healthy tree for life.

I sprinkled some olive-tree shavings across the bottom, added bagged soil, the mandarin, water, more bagged soil, and at last a ridge from the excavated soil to make a moat around the trunk. More water. I did cut back the scraggly old bushes that were peering over the edge of the hole in that picture earlier. The temperature hit low enough that the lights on the mango next to it clicked on in the dusk.

It is done. I cannot tell you how good it feels. Grow little tree grow!

Learned something new today. Those spacers I bought to try to reposition fruit tree limbs with just a little?

Our English Morello cherry’s pruned and shortened branches were quite stiff and quite determined to stay as upwards-facing as possible last Saturday when I planted it. Like I mentioned, that can lead to broken boughs in years to come so even though there wasn’t much to anchor them against I did what I could with some of the smallest spacers to try to stretch the wood earthward a bit.

Tonight I went out to see if by very small chance I could reposition things a little. I truly did not expect to.

I could. Rather easily, actually, I could even get a medium spacer in one place now and the angles are noticeably improved.

Who knew that making a few very small changes and allowing it some time would help it become flexible enough to accept the better points of viewing to come?

Sun, sun, watching its path… Huh! Going down the fence line it’s low light at the corner, high light (where the mango is)–I knew that–but then kind of middling and then back up to high where the new cherry is–so in between those two high points is a lower one. Who knew. I’m thinking, the fig is deciduous so, no, put that in that spot where it won’t bother it if there are slightly fewer minutes of direct light in the winter (even after digging that hole a foot further forward yesterday) when it’s going to be bare anyway and then put the Gold Nugget mandarin between it and the mango and it’ll be happier.

I’m glad I gave myself time to observe the interplay between the heights of those trees as they are now and those rays before planting.

All of which is an excuse to show more photos. The fig starting to leaf out, some of the mango clusters, the Stella cherry with a few more blossoms open.

Re the knitting. For someone I’ve never met before but who’s about to become an in-law, silk is the safest yarn to reach for in terms of the odds of pleasing them and not running into allergies, right?

I was watching the path of the sunlight closely today, moving the mandarin pot in and out of the hole I’d dug so far, and decided that it was going to have at least a half hour to maybe even an hour in the winter more direct sun if it came forward about a foot; all I had to do was dig a little more. The more hardpack clay replaced for its roots to grow into the better anyway.

The Gold Nugget variety we bought, it turns out, survives to 26F, six degrees colder than almost all the other varieties, it produces in the early spring rather than winter, the flavor is supposed to be intense, and then, unlike some, the fruit can simply wait there on the tree for months without rotting. Ready when you are. Eating a perfect tangerine right off the tree in July? No problem.

I would say we totally lucked out when we got that one.

There was a meeting at church tonight and having just put down my tools since I can only be outside in low UV I decided I was too tired to drive; Richard said no problem, and off we went.

And so I got to be the passenger and thus put my full attention on it.

We were pulling through the big driveway there when I suddenly exclaimed. He had no idea why. A little further and he stopped by the door and then asked what that was all about.

You didn’t see it?!

No, I didn’t, what was it?

A Cooper’s hawk and some smaller but not small bird were doing a crazy-fast slalom race across the parking lot and over and around our car, in such tight formation the whole time that at first glance I had not been able to tell it was two birds. They were right there at the passenger side!

Wow!

I wasn’t the only one watching, I realized as I got out of the car and looked up. C A W W W. There were two ravens at the top of a tree watching, knowing that hawk would win and waiting, two-on-one, to mob it and steal its hard work the instant they could.

Only, our car had blocked their view a moment and I had spotted them at it. Corvids are always very interested in what humans are doing–they’ve survived via scavenging from people for millennia. They turned their attention to me and spoke up some more, conversing with either each other or me or who knows.

And with that diversion, the hawk wasn’t forced to give up his meal for his mate and his nestlings, wherever he might be now. His.

The first day of blooming for the Stella cherry.

Caught another cold and slept very little last night but it didn’t stop me from doing more digging and planting this evening. The prep work for the Gold Nugget mandarin is done, other than that nicked water line. The one single zucchini/pattypan hybrid seed I sprouted inside is now out there giving it its all, hoping for not-too-cold nights. What the heck. I put more seeds down near the baby plant–we can sauté the flowers and skip scaring the neighbors with the excess.

The friend who’d recommended Black Jack figs has hers espaliered.

I waited for Richard to get his input. After digging a hole in the corner at the end of the row the Stella is on (which was fine with him) and then thinking no, I don’t want it there, I went back to our original plan, which was to put it in a pot to help limit its size with the least effort or at least to buy us some time till we decide to do otherwise while we see just how fast this thing grows. Turns out we’d had different ideas on where that pot should go so I’m glad I waited; he’s been so supportive and I’m trying to return the favor.

He most wanted it up against the back fence, thinking how about to the far right from the cherry picture.

I could so easily espalier it right there and ditch the ugly Costco fake-wine-half-barrel thing and that would work really well.

If I wanted to. Not sure I do. Fig trees are pretty and I want it pretty. (Okay, and I’ve never done anything remotely like espalier work before.) But we could always transplant later–the Stella used to be in that same pot.

So I took it over by the tea roses where he wanted. It took some work to pull its bulging sleeve off–it turned out the roots had grown into every molecule of space and where they’d hit bottom they’d curled around and back into the mass like a felted knitted thing. Planted like that, they would strangle themselves. They were already working hard at it. There was nothing for it but to cut them apart and pull as hard as I could, again and again, doing as little as possible and as much as I had to and separating them into roughly four solid clumps with a few stragglers and hoping that would be enough.

But at that point I was fast running out of daylight and a decision had to be made.

A stick in the mud in the pot. Plunk. It’ll do for now.

This is my favorite peach blossom photo so far, the Indian Free–just wait till there are hundreds of these all at once. I’m going to let the tree concentrate on establishing its structure this first year, no peaches, but for now I’ll share it with the honeybees. It’s too pretty not to.

Re the knitting. I had an appointment with the eye doctor Friday that I knew was likely to take awhile, so, needing a portable project I grabbed some yarn and needles on my way out the door.

Dark yarn does not go with dilated eyes when you’re trying not to make a mobius strip on your circular needles. I made a mobius strip. And that of course is one of the great things about knitting: if you don’t like what you did you can simply turn it back into anonymous plain yarn. Try not to raspberry at it in triumph while it’s getting all wound up about it.

When the doctor explained that having two early-stage cataracts was normal for people in their 50s and 60s I had this strong inner protest of But *I’M* not that old! Mercifully stifled almost as instantly by the common-sense thought that oh wait. Yes. Yes, actually, I am. Well, the one not the other but still.

I could really have put myself out on a limb there.

Sweet cherries are wonderful but there is nothing like a sour one for pies.

I jotted down all the varieties and dates yesterday: Stella cherry, May 29-June 14, Santa Rosa plum, June 25-July 5, English Morello cherry? Right in between there at June 9-22, the best I was going to get. Those are average ripening times where the grower is in the Central Valley but it tells me what the spacing is so that I don’t have everything happening all at once. The other sour cherries ripened when my sweet Stella does and the English Morello needs a lot fewer chill hours to set fruit than some of the others–so. It was definitely the one.

Checking around, I ended up on the phone yesterday again with San Lorenzo Garden Center in Santa Cruz, where I got that glorious Indian Free peach a month ago.

Yes, they had one. Yes, they would hold it for me. I told them I would come today to get it.

What they didn’t say was that bare root trees were going to be half off today.

And so we set off noon-ish over twisting, steep, narrow Highway 17 with Richard (oh thank you thank you) at the wheel over the mountains (he’s a peach).

And as we went we discussed whether to get more than just that sour cherry. Having allowed as how a good fig was okay by him and with me saying I would want to keep it in a pot so it doesn’t take over the world–and we had the pot–we decided to see what we could see.

We couldn’t find the cherry. Any cherry. We asked for help. The guy looked awhile just like we had and being distracted with multiple people loaded a tree on our cart while I was over looking at mandarins, and as I headed back and looked askance at the height of that thing Richard was going, Uh, the tag says this is a birch.

Oh right. Sorry, he said. (Off with the birch.)

Nope, I checked again, the cherry was definitely not in Plant Hold–and just as I started to say wistfully that we had come from over the hill for it I found it over there with the other bare-roots still but with a tag on it: Sold. With my name and phone number. YES!

By now someone else was helping us out and she asked me (it was quickly clear to her I was the one most vested in this) what shape I wanted: central leader or vase?

I had my opinion but she’s the expert so I told her how I wanted to block the neighbors’ windows as it grew: Vase, said she, and pruned it on the spot. “You’ll need spacers,” looking at the angles on those limbs.

“I have spacers.”

She smiled and nodded.  She found a small broken root I would never have noticed and trimmed it off and we were good to go.

Black Jack figs were the variety most recommended to me by a friend who grows several types in our area and so the only one I was interested in. They had a beautiful one. Score.

I was hoping to find a Kishu mandarin. Turns out they’d sold the last one for the year a half hour before we’d gotten there and the growers themselves were completely out of stock.

Having gotten the Page tanangelo I wanted last summer, I wanted a tangerine for Richard, one without grapefruit parentage.

Gold Nugget starts producing after Page is done and not only is the fruit marvelous, it waits on the tree throughout the summer for you to get to as it suits you. (Squirrel netting here we definitely come.)

The surprise of the day was the total. The cherry tree? All of $12.50. The fig? $10. The mandarin, a new, patented variety, was also on sale, and at $25 was the splurge of the day.

$12.50 for organically grown sour cherry pie for life, sweetened with the tangerine juice to come. Not a bad way to celebrate 3/14/15.

I cannot tell you how good it feels to see that cherry in the ground where it’s been looking so bare. The roots were wide–this is good–but it took more work than I expected. (I knew about that old water pipe now. I did not know about that olive root the stump grinder had missed.) I definitely earned my good night’s sleep tonight.

The Gold Nugget will go in that second hole over where I nicked that pipe Thursday night but there are only so many hours in one Saturday and we didn’t get that repaired quite yet. No hurry, that tree came potted.

Monday I’ll get back to work.

Remember last September when I lifted Parker up high to pick the last two apples off our Fuji tree?

Turns out he sure did.

So last weekend while we were at their house he had his mommy cut him up an apple, sliced across the equator so he could pick the seeds out and offer them to me. He was telling me I could plant them. He offered me the other half of the apple but I let him eat mine, too. He likes apples. He likes picking out the seeds. So that was fine by him.

Kim explained so I would be clued in as to what a gift I was being offered.

Parker is totally sold on this idea of apple seeds growing into apple trees and then apples growing on those trees and starting the whole apple cycle all over again. Turns out he’s been saving all his and burying them down in the ground while taking walks, at the park, wherever it looks to him like it might be a good spot. Might take awhile but he’s ready to see it happen and he’s getting them started and knowing that I too like apple trees, he wanted to share the possibility with me of my making my own, too. From his seeds! So it would be our tree together!

My plate got cleared from the table by one of the menfolk who’d missed that conversation while I was trying to find something to take them home in to plant because how could I not. (The coin part of my wallet. That would have done it. Didn’t think of it fast enough.) I was thinking I would send him pictures as one sprouted and grew in a little pot and we would see where it went from there. (Not worrying about chill hour needs yet–what variety was that?)

Gone. Oh oops.

To my relief Parker took it as no big deal. There will be more apples to eat. He’s on it.