Michelle is moving and some of her stuff will have to store here for a little while. Eichler houses do not have attics nor basements. I am taking a break for a moment from getting ready for tomorrow’s input. (Your roommate gave you her piano? Cool!)

The little English Morello tart cherry tree that we planted last year, whose emerging leaves got utterly devoured again and again till I finally went out one night and discovered the pharoah’s plague of Japanese beetles swarming it–that tree. Big rootstock but the top stayed tiny, not much taller than my knees.

So I was just waiting for those bugs to come back. Meantime, the squirrels dug for them, the towhees stood near the tree and jumped backwards again and again, spraying bits of dirt out of the way and pecking at what were surely tasty shiny green/black goodies; me, I shook barbecue-grill ashes along the branches and the bottom of the trunk, figuring that was probably not the same as when I sprinkled it directly on the bugs last year and they all instantly fell off dying as the ash broke their joints. (And fertilized the tree.) But hey. A little preemptive Do Something. We all pitched in.

Tiny pops of green last week, later than the sweet cherry but not to worry–and no sign of damage. Every morning and every night I’ve checked. We’re good.

Yesterday was different, though: suddenly some of those round green buds started to turn white and tomorrow we should actually have flowers. Who knew! I had zero expectations of sour cherries this year–I expected the tree to still be in pure survival mode.

I guess it recovered better than I could see.

And for a total win, the thing is still so tiny that it fits under one of my small birdnetting tents. Easiest critter guard ever.

Looked out the window to see a black squirrel hanging upside down the trunk of the cherry tree. Wait–there isn’t even any fruit there yet, guys, c’mon! But given that the squirrels gnawed halfway through and destroyed a bunch of peaches the size of a small fingernail I chased him off and did a “And STAY out!” by baptizing the tree by sprinkling. With cinnamon. What I’d put out for the ants had gotten rained off and I hadn’t thought I at all needed to replace it yet but I was wrong.

Not a single critter has come back. That I know of.

We went out and bought birdnetting this evening, though we have not wrestled it on yet.

A few days ago a raven landed on the fence immediately behind that cherry, his mate in the neighbor’s tree just behind him, and with a my-territory-not-your-territory from me they promptly flew off; every time since then that they’ve returned to that tree just beyond the fence they have stayed behind a big limb as if to hide. But they have not come into my back yard.

Today there were a lot more cherry blossoms promising of all the goodness to come–and two side-by-side raven-sized poop jobs on my car. I washed them off fast before they could damage the paint; I’m hoping we’re not going to have to buy a car cover. I mean, hey, I didn’t even do the fake dead crow thing yet, guys!

Tonight while weeding I found a third of those critter holes (possum? Raccoon? Skunk?) dug under the fence, a new one in exactly the shape and size of the other two and immediately below where that raven had landed, i.e. as close to the trunk of that same sweet cherry as it could get.

I think what we have here is a conflict of interest.

(So I got out a long-tangled hank of Malabrigo Rios and got that pretty and exquisitely soft yarn all wound up neatly, needing to exert total control over a frustration, any frustration, and turn it into happy anticipation. It’s beautiful now and ready to dive into. It felt great.)

After holding back for last, the cherry season finally began with the first blossom opening yesterday on the Stella tree.

As soon as the fruit sets I’m going for the birdnetting.

(The photo angle makes the beak look a little smaller than it is.)

Coming out of Los Gatos Birdwatcher, my fob, which unlocks the car as you approach, was dead and my hands were full–I had to put everything down to pull the small key out of it, a task that requires adept fingernailing on the little slider thingy. And I did not want to damage the most fragile item in my hands. Argh.

The person helping carry the 20 lb bag of birdseed was fine with waiting however long it took me, just very patient, even though I knew the store was full of more customers waiting to be checked out than I think I’d ever seen when it wasn’t Christmastime.

Got in the car. Thanked the woman, who smiled, hoisted the big bag in and was gone.

Wait. No fob. Just the key in my hand, which only works on the door; you have to put it back into the fob to start the car.

Got out, found it, got in, had it in my hand…and again it had vanished. I hadn’t even felt it slip. I flashed back to my mom’s story of doing this with her car key when I was a teen waiting for her to pick me up from a piano lesson…for an hour…. (But that’s how she got back the piano bench cover she’d been needlepointing for her mom for a full year, with only maybe an inch of fabric left to do, when it suddenly hit her she’d gone through her knitting bag all. these. times. and–racing back to that grocery store!–so it was all good.)

No rescue-the-needlepoint story here to excuse my klutziness though. I was out and looking around the passenger side of my parking space when some young men, late teens, maybe early 20s started to pull into the spot by mine (did it somehow fall under my car?), but rather than being annoyed at me for making them wait a moment the driver opened his door asking, Are you looking for something? In a tone of, May I help you with your search?

Good people are everywhere.

I finally found my fob again and was off. Phew!

And suddenly realized, wait: no bag. That crow is just sitting on the back seat. What if the real ones see it when I pull into the driveway? I should pull over between here and home and cover it, I could have retaliatory corvids pulling off the rubber from the wiper blades for years! Which happened to the U of WA professor after capturing and studying his real crow.

I didn’t though, but when I got home I leaned over it, hoping to block any view from the redwood next to the driveway they like to perch in, took my sweater off and wrapped it around and carried my prize oh so carefully inside.

Would it work for ravens too? I’d wondered to the woman running the shop.

They’re not communal, she mused; I don’t know.

On second thought, though, it occurs to me, what if a raven tries to eat it? Mmm, tasty. Not. I guess then it would just look more dead?

But I am really grateful to that bird store for such a nature-friendly idea for keeping the crows from raiding my fruit trees, not to mention the warning not to be seen by them at it. They so deserved that sale.

I made sure not to put it where it could be seen through any window from any angle. I am having to resist putting it out there tonight. I think I want to wait till the cherries, now in early bud, start to look edible.

Right?

The dishwasher is fixed, the dishwasher is fixed!

Those tight pink apple buds I photo’d earlier finally opened up when it wasn’t raining and the air was a little warmer.

The fig tree: nine days ago and now. The tether to the fence was to brace it against a serious windstorm we had last fall, while it still had its big leaves, and it came in handy again these past few days.

The early blueberries are halfway along.

And the peaches! I found a dozen actual beginning peaches before it started to rain and I bugged out of there.

That’s the good part. The bad part was that the squirrels had already gnawed off half the outermost part of six of them. They are now clamshelled–although, peaches fruit on new wood and much of it was too tender to hold up one of the bigger clamshells the fruit will need later. I quickly scrounged up some small ones and they worked just fine for now. The rain held its breath till I could finish.

Re the knitting: I’m working on a cowl in dk weight, a gift from Dragonfly Fibers. Yarn is Traveller, color is Peony. It’s been 10 grams worth of yarn per pattern repeat and I have enough yarn to do one last repeat, which I would start with at the next stitch. Except that after 93 grams, it’s already a lot of cowl. But I can’t stand to not use every bit of a favorite Stitches yarn.

So I’m throwing it at the blog for the night and deciding in the morning.

You start with one seed sprouting. The new plant sends out runners that create new plants all around it, and new around them, the leaves gradually weaving under and over with more baby plants squeezing into every available space till it’s hard to find where one starts under there to get your fingers under all the leaves of just that one to give it a good hard effective yank. Out.

Invoke your Citizens United metaphor here–or not.

Picturing my grandchildren walking across the sharp-spiked seedheads and crying for pain spurred me to keep going no matter how tired I got: it wasn’t raining, I was only coughing a little bit, don’t stop.

Gasping for breath is not a good sign. I did stop and went inside and put my feet up. I was able to stand it for about five minutes, then I got right back to it–I don’t want poisons, I can’t afford, not in money nor energy, to cover the whole back yard in mulch. Go.

I think I freed us of about fifty pounds’ worth and glancing back at last Tuesday’s post, I’d forgotten I’d gotten nearly this much out that day, too–before I started today you would never have known that. Darn. I did clear out one entire patch. I have to win.

Leavitt Lake at 9400′ elevation has gone from 111″ of snowpack to 141″ since yesterday morning. Very, very nice. Here, we’re at .55″ of rain so far today and they’re saying that much more by the time we wake up in the morning. Forecast is for six days of rain in the next nine. Looking good.

Rain rain rain rain rain, much of it in fierce sideways gusts, 1.3″ of it today, wonderful wonderful (cold dark go get a warmer sweater) rain.

My English Morello tart cherry early this morning, responding to all the lovely water and with no sign of Japanese beetle damage whatsoever. We are winning that battle (link to how) this year. And that was the last time I dared take an exposed iPhone outside.

The dishwasher that was backed up last night that I hoped I’d gotten going didn’t stay going. But the sink is just fine…! Crud.

That thing at the back of the fridge?

See, after twenty-six years of lupus and Crohn’s, when I have a good day after a string of bad, when there’s a task or even a fun thing pulling at me I do it while I can, even when I know I’m overdoing. “Today I can do this” is my stock inner phrase and these had to be done. Go.

I cleaned the fridge. The dishes (well, most of the dishes. I can only stand in place so long but I got two good tries out of it.) The laundry, because they were predicting falling trees and power outages with our wind advisory and flash flood warnings–and sheets and fevers and yeah. Meantime, Richard braved it out there, his oversized umbrella flipping inside out several times in the short steps from car to doors as he hunter-gathered into the wilds.

And I made good headway on my new project. I mean, isn’t it, like, a rule that you have to knit and watch the rain?

Coopernicus showed up on the telephone wires, feathers being blown backwards from time to time, rousing and shaking off the deluge. He people watched back for a bit. I could see his beak open as he commented an aside to the unseen.

We’re good for a few days now. My stars, (glancing up), it’s 11:08. G’night.

More energy, less fever. Yay! Missing a mini-family reunion, not so yay, but sometimes you just don’t get to do what you wish you could do. Those flying home to Texas and Hawaii can wave hi from afar with me.

Well maybe at least I could snap a nice picture, and so I went outside when the sky took a break. Love love love how this one came out. And while I was snapping away I glanced up into the gray sky, anticipating more rain warning me to bug out of there, to see instead two hawks air-dancing above and I stopped and I watched them court till they were out of sight and away.

Coopernicus and his mate, no doubt, and their appearance broke through my own little cloud as I wished them a successful season rearing a new family.

The anticipated, delayed rain had finally begun today after a drought-dry February.

Rather than a thousand petals all over the ground, Adele’s peach simply bloomed all the more.

I knitted  till my hands had to stop. Stitches yarn is the best yarn.

The downtown San Jose peregrine falcons had their fourth egg today–here’s a video of the male trying to cover them all.

Meantime, the Baby Crawford peach (first two pictures) that I planted in January has been trying its very best to help pollinate the year-old Indian Free. (Third picture.) They’re a match, blossom-time-wise, as I had so hoped.

The Fuji apple started today, too, with this one flower cluster I must have missed earlier and several sets of deep pink buds where yesterday there were only baby leaves.

It can take its time to bring out the rest, though–our long and much-needed bout of rain starts tonight and I figure that short of trying to jury-rig a beach umbrella over the trees, whatever is pollinated is pollinated and that will mostly be that.

(Notice how much darker the leaves are on the apple flowers vs the buds–that’s the difference of a day’s worth of sunshine.)

Rain is coming, nine days of it, after a mostly-dry February. Hallelujah.

Which also means that since I was feeling a lot better and the time was very short, I spent about two hours yesterday yanking out hundreds of weeds by the roots before that water lets them re-anchor. Before, the plants weren’t big enough to reliably pull clear to the taproot, the leaves would just tear off. I’d tried.

Okay, the answer to that is to use a trowel but that’s harder on my knitting hands.

I got the huge yard-trimmings bin half full and snapped this photo before calling it a night. I’d made decent progress, at least.

And then I spent today feverish and achy and mostly asleep and I just barely managed to get fluids down–the Crohn’s wanted in on the fun. Speaking of which, if the MAP vaccine currently in trial succeeds I am going to be first in line the first day and it would be SO cool to have a cure!

Anyway, re the germ relapse, I totally earned it but I’m still glad I got those weeds out. Some had already started to grow their stabby Hades heels.

I just can’t get enough of these. The Indian Free has the biggest, pinkest flowers of any of my peaches.

The branch I pruned off it this winter and rooted and planted and pretended to be a real gardener with is up to three leaves today. There was a bud showing a little pink, too, but I carefully nipped it away so it could save its strength: be a tree first before you can be a fruit tree, little one.

But boy will it be a glorious when it grows up.

I had no idea it would work out that the prettiest tree would be the one closest to Adele, but I’m really, really glad.

Oh and yes–there was a bit of knitting done.

Took it easy today. Cold, just a cold, no autoimmune attack, just a plain, ordinary, mild germ like everybody else gets: normal is good. Napped for three hours and came to thinking wow, I guess I really was tired. Made chicken soup. Tried to talk myself into working on my new knitting project. (Stitches yarn!) Tried on the now-dried blocked one and hoped the recipient will love it as much as I do.

And then finally I went to see what 69F had wrought out there.

The Fuji apple had started to wake up, that was new, just the first few leaves here and there. The sour cherry’s buds grew, too, even if not quite ready to open yet; I doused them in ashes from my friend Krys’s barbecue to kill the Japanese beetles I knew would be right on any new growth. I’d been watching to beat them to it. The squirrels have been digging around that tree and I figure they’re going after where those bugs are hiding during the day.

Don’t do the ash thing to the far more tender leaves of a pear, though; I tried it last year and got what looked like fireblight, the disease, but was actually a more literal version. All the leaves that grew after that were perfectly healthy.

Yesterday, we saw the resident Cooper’s hawk being squawked at, his tail tucked in tight as he dove high into the redwood tree. Four crows tried to harass him there. Two quickly gave that up as a bad idea and flew to the top of the next tall tree over to yell king-of-the-mountain from a much safer distance. (Have you ever noticed how they need to be at the tippy tippy top to declare dominance even when it can’t support their weight and they swing and sway wildly? Trampoline trees.)

Clearly, as soon as I kick this bug I need to go back to Los Gatos Birdwatcher and buy one of those rent-a-cr0ws that they’re hawking. For Coopernicus’s sake.

This was the very nearly bare branch at the back in yesterday’s picture–we’re up to six baby figs tonight with the tree sprouting everywhere now.

Meantime.

We were in the longest and I mean longest line at Trader Joe’s. Ten minutes it didn’t move, and the others weren’t much better.

I gave a dad with an antsy little girl a finger puppet–and only afterwards realized she had a hospital bracelet on her wrist. She needed it all the more, then.

I had time to exclaim to the woman standing next to me over her purse, which was clearly hand knit and hand felted with inner and outer pockets (that takes skill in the felting process), a flap, a full lining sewn in, she showed me–just a beautiful piece of handiwork. Had she made it?

Oh she wished! But she did knit; her friend had made this.

Did you go to Stitches last weekend? I asked her, sure of my answer–I mean, this local, how could she not have, right? Where we were standing was less than ten miles from the venue.

The look on her face! Like she was almost afraid to ask what she’d missed out on but oh goodness she HAD to know! A hesitant, No… What’s that?

About a hundred fifty to two hundred vendors and ten thousand knitters at the Santa Clara Convention Center. People fly in from all over for it.

Sacramento? she asked. (As in, far enough away she didn’t have to regret missing it?)

Santa Clara. At the Convention Center.

There was both profound regret and a deep excitement in her voice now. She hadn’t seen any advertisements. I wondered in return if you had to know by word of mouth, more or less? Next year, she said. She was going! Next year!

There is no question in my mind she went straight home and looked it up now that she knew to. And I hope her friend who does such beautiful work goes, too.

I came away really glad Richard and I had both felt too tired to tackle Costco so we’d just gone to the much smaller grocery with the short lines. Which thankfully weren’t.

While I’m feeling a bit under the weather how about I share a little more Spring. I saw no sign of life yesterday on that fig branch and now it’s got both early leaf and fruit. Meantime, the volunteer fig I dug out of my tomatoes last year has a leaf again–and it doubled in size over the course of the day. If I’m really going to grow that then I need it in something bigger than a flower-bulb-size clay pot.

I showed a picture of one of the Indian Free peach flowers yesterday to Timothy, who used to grow them at his old house, and he was surprised that that was what that was: “Already?”

It’s been warm.

I did a quick count of buds and flowers on it today, probably missed a few, and still got forty-eight. Here’s what it looked like at planting last February. One year. Standard-type rootstock rather than semi-dwarfed is definitely the way to go for instant gratification–we ate its first peach last summer and it was very, very good.