The first flowers on the Indian Free peach opened. The Baby Crawford sprouted five tiny buds today, with a hint of pink at the tips–not bad for a one-month-old.

Clara laid her first egg of the season near the top of San Jose City Hall today.

I saw not the usual redtail hawk in that area but a peregrine falcon in the hills above town today, well outside of Clara’s territory, and wondered if it was one of our old hatchlings.

And I’m going to stop writing and get back to my knitting and man, does it feel good to wrap wool around wood right now.

One other Stitches story: I looked down at the basket at the front of my scooter Saturday afternoon and was stunned to find a four-inch knitted square in soft purple merino finished with a little crocheted hanging loop. Oh goodness!

I wheeled straight back to Mosaic Moon with the deepest apologies for my inadvertent thievery, saying it had to have either been from them or one other booth. (I hoped?!)

The guy laughed off my worries, affirmed it was theirs, and was just plain glad to see me again because that’s the kind of person he is. I was impressed. And deeply relieved it had found its way home and no harm was done. He definitely deserved a shout-out, and Mosaic Moon’s yarns are gorgeous and soft and I spent a lot of time oohing and aahing in their booth.

Back home, the third and fourth peach trees are almost in sync: the Babcock started blooming last Thursday, while the Indian Free, my only one that needs a pollinator, is almost, almost blooming but just not quite there yet. Tomorrow. My Baby Crawford that I planted last month, once it grows up a little, should cover any time the Babcock’s not doing the necessary overlapping flowering while keeping up the steady sequence of ripening times. We do love a good peach.

Meantime, back when I pruned the vigorous Indian Free, I plunked the largest multi-branch in sugar water and left it in the kitchen a few weeks to see if it would do anything.

It sprouted thread-thin roots and I planted it in a pot as soon as I saw them, wondering if they would take and if so how to make the leaf/root balance play out right.

A few weeks later squirrelocity today could not make it uproot from that pot. Looking good.

And today for the first time it had a spark of green at one node and it made me just about giddy with glee: it lives! It really lives!

We don’t need two identicals. I’ve been thinking once it gets going it just couldn’t be that hard to find someone who wants glorious spring flowers and nice-sized leaves, a tree that is highly resistant to peach leaf curl, and if there’s a pollinator nearby all the better and they’ll have Thomas Jefferson’s favorite peaches but it would be worth having even without that. It’s a pretty tree. Without a grafted root stock I can only guess that it will want to be quite tall: future yarn bombers take note.

Let’s wait till we see a second leaf or three, though, m’kay? But still. Looking at it feels glorious. To life!

More plum blossoms after the rain! (Snail deterrent at the base of the trunk.)

I looked out a back window this morning in time to see a large flock of crows fly across the neighbors’ yards, easily a hundred birds, coming and coming and coming (and just avoiding flying over our yard. Smart birds.) This surprised me because I’d been seeing fewer corvids around since a reported salmonella outbreak killed a lot of songbirds this past fall and I assume the scavengers who ate them as well, since that would explain why rather suddenly they weren’t everywhere all the time. (Newspaper link from last February on their then-population explosion.)

But here these were.

And so when I got to Los Gatos Birdwatcher to buy my monthly birdseed, I asked: “What’s the best way to keep the crows out of my fruit trees once things start ripening?”

The young clerk, unsure of herself at first, half-asked back, “Bird netting?”

And then it came to her and she brightened and added, “Or you could get on our rent-a-crow program.”

Wait, your what?! (Okay, this I had to hear.)

Behind her, she gestured, were two stuffed quite lifelike crows, one upright, one not so much. You put one keeled over in your yard for a week.

“At night,” the middle-aged woman behind her working on the books interjected without looking up.

At night, the younger one nodded. They’re rented for a week for $10 or you can buy one for $36–“And all the crows come and they hold a funeral for the dead crow. And then they all leave and they don’t come back because they don’t want to be where a crow died.”

Having read Marzluff’s book, Gifts of the Crow, yes, those are behaviors they do and yes definitely you’d want to put it out at night and I was glad to be reminded of what I’d read–because otherwise they would think you had killed it and they would teach their offspring to retaliate against you to the third and fourth generation: attacking, pooping on your car, stealing the rubber off your windshield wipers, you don’t mess with crows. Now, going outside and swinging my arms like I do they’re fine with–they understand territory claims and it’s an accepted thing. But hurting one of their own. Oh no. They will get you.

No soft fruits yet (lemons don’t count) so I told the women I was going to go home and have a good laugh with my husband–and then I was going to come back next time and buy one of those. (That way I know for sure I’ll have one available next year too no matter what they might be selling or renting then or not, but I didn’t say that.)

I need me a toy crow. Definitely. Feet up. Do not go out at dusk but only at the darkest of night and given the city lights I’d still put a hood half over my face. I can’t wait to loan it to my neighbor whose persimmons will be in full production come December when all my trees are done for the year.

I’ll have to drive the car away for hours the next morning after I put it out there so that they know I’m gone and that they can land in my yard to pay their respects.

I had two projects I wanted to finish before Stitches: one for the pride of showing the thing off, and I really wanted to, and the other for the sake of someone in particular I badly wanted to give it to. I was adamant with myself that I was going to finish that gorgeous silk first.

Which means neither project was getting done…

I kept starting and finishing other things altogether till I gave up on the pride and dealt with the fact that the other was the recipient’s favorite color, not mine, and dove into that gift project at long last. It is now blocking, with all the magic that is lace+water=gorgeous. Looking at it, I marvel that I ever had a problem getting myself to sit down and work on that. The anticipation (with a bit of relief thrown in) is sweet.

One thing to mention from yesterday. I heard the mailman and went out to the mailbox and there, standing shyly on the sidewalk, was the tall young dad from across the street, holding his baby boy, his three-year-old daughter clinging to the side of his leg when she saw me coming. The dad was glad I’d come out–he’d wanted to explain why they were standing there and there I was, making it easy.

Our oxalises were blooming and she’d wanted to come over and look at the pretty flowers.

There was a long-stemmed dandelion flower in her hand.

I remembered the spluttering and outrage of a gardener, years ago, when I stopped him from cutting my yellow patch down–to him, oxalis were weeds and a nuisance and he glanced down the street to see if any of the neighbors were seeing him being derelict in his work. But to me they were what had invited me to walk in to this house the first time I’d seen the place. They don’t seed, they don’t spread, they just bloom in their spot every winter and then quietly vanish at the dryness of the summers to await their rebirth.

I explained to the little girl that the sun was going down so the flowers were closing up for the night, but they would open again in the morning and you could still see their pretty color.

She looked at me with big eyes and tucked herself behind her daddy and peeked out as I smiled.

I leaned over and picked a stem with a nice little cluster and offered it to her. She let me give it to her.

Her daddy thanked me warmly, and we each went back inside to work on our respective dinners, with me plotting of peaches and plums to knock on their door with in a few months.

Bought my two-day pass and I’m ready for Stitches this Friday and Saturday. To say I can’t wait is the understatement of the–well, actually, it’s been two years; I had a bad case of the flu last February. So, yeah.

Meantime, after a few days of unseasonably warm weather, 79F today when the average for 2/16  is 61F, this peach and my Santa Rosa plum went full speed ahead. I just hope the bees get to those flowers by Wednesday afternoon because we’re supposed to have a good hard rain then and on into Thursday, stopping (they say) a few hours before the doors open at the Santa Clara Convention Center for the people doing classes.

No raining on the incoming knitters. I’m holding them to it. 

Went out this morning armed with cinnamon sticks and out again this evening to check again.

No new gopher holes either time. No new signs.

But something did, over the course of the day, munch most of the petals off the two peaches that had started blooming. Because, y’know, Nature vs. nurture.

Two new gopher holes by the Indian Free peach tree, which is along the same fence line but at the far end of it from the first attack. I can’t lose that one, I just can’t. But my Comice pear, whose trunk is now ringed by lots of little cinnamon sticks,  seems to be being left alone now.

So the peach got a bunch, too.

I just ordered two more pounds from nuts.com: the cassia type, cheaper and more pungent and exactly what I want. I imagine I’ll have to re-dose after next week’s rain.

And I finally at long last did something I’d been thinking about trying–seeing if swapping out the white bulbs on the warming Christmas lights on the mango would make the night less bright. The answer is, and how!

I didn’t have enough opaque incandescent blue bulbs in the right C9 size to raid from various old strings so I had to finish off with green ones. But oh does it make a difference.

I heard something out there when I went to snap this picture that puzzled me. It stopped when I approached the tree. It started up again when I was almost inside. Walked back towards the tree, and it stopped, but I don’t think it was even in my yard: a rhythmic sound that I finally figured out would be if a critter was trying to dig under, say, a wood plank that was hitting another wood plank. It seemed to come from the other side of the fence.

Skunks eat mice and rats. So that means they’d eat gophers too, right? I hope?

I left the gate open so it wouldn’t have any trouble getting over there. That done, I’m definitely not going back out there in the dark, not tonight.

More gopher holes yesterday. A lot more, same area but further out from the pear tree, none of them very big of an opening.

Alright then: I found the Costco bottle of cinnamon sticks and stuck one into the opening to each hole (should have thought of that sooner.) Each almost entirely filled the space. Then where the edge of the house comes closest to the fence I drew a line of ground cinnamon straight across to make a scent fence. The little underground beavers have to come up to sniff the air sometime.

Today I found that no stick had been touched. There were just a couple new holes, placed as if the gopher had been trying to avoid what I’d done. I stuck cinnamon sticks in them, too, again half in the ground, half out, little flags all around marking my territory. It was welcome to go right back where it came from–out of here!

Meantime, my plum tree, my Santa Rosa plum my kids planted me as a surprise Mother’s Day gift about eight years ago–the last two years it looked increasingly unwell and I thought for sure last summer we were losing it. Of what I don’t know and I could only Google, but when I described it to a friend who has the same variety she said her tree was like that now, too.

I treated it like a peach, giving it an organic-label-friendly dormant copper-spray treatment a month ago, at least on the main part of the trunk and some of the branches before I ran out, trying to do something.

Yesterday it showed only gray trunk and limbs and I was still wondering if that’s all it would ever be again.

Today it had small bursts of green everywhere, some single, some in clusters. All. Over. It felt very, very good.

And I have more cinnamon sticks for this end of the yard, too, if I need them.

It was almost time to go pick up Richard when I felt like walking around the yard while there was still some light out, just to enjoy.

Our lemon tree is having the biggest and juiciest crop it’s had in years (thank you, rain!) and I found myself reaching in past a few thorns for a larger, deeper-colored one. The bit of tangerine in the tree’s parentage deepens the flavor the longer they ripen.

Coming back inside, I meant to put it down in the kitchen but somehow I walked on past and it stayed in my hand.

I was almost to the door. I stopped a moment, looked at the thing, and wondered if today somehow I was supposed to gift someone with, of all things, a lemon. A fresh-picked lemon, but still, it wasn’t much, it certainly wasn’t a hand knit, but hey, they’re fun and they smell wonderful and so out the door we go, sure, I’m curious to see if anything comes of this, but whatever.

I tucked it in a cupholder next to the driver’s side.

Richard didn’t get my text that I’d arrived and so I ended up waiting ten minutes before finally calling and going, yo….

And during that time one of his co-workers on his way to his car walked past where I’d parked and waved hi.

I turned the car back on a moment so I could roll the window down and asked how his day had gone.

Oh! He threw up his hands and laughed with a wince. Busy! SO busy! But he looked like he really didn’t want to be asked any questions about details, so okay, and I found myself reaching for that silly lemon. I described having just picked it and on a whim having brought it with me; would he like it?

That was the–comic relief isn’t the word–the break from it all, something so unexpected, and he said, “Sure!” in delight. He turned it over in his hands a moment, taking it in, and asked, “A Meyer?”

“A Meyer lemon, yes.”

He told me they’d had a tree, but, in embarrassment, “I killed it.” I told him that in that big week-long freeze we had about 15 years ago we thought ours was gone, too, but it had slowly come back and now it’s fine.

I don’t know what he’ll do with just one lemon, but I saw what that one homegrown lemon in that moment could do for him. It was just the thing.

I walked around the yard this evening, taking in the slow awakening that makes the whole winter thing worth it.

My Tropic Snow peach. As I was trying to get just the right angle with my phone, a hummingbird dashed right in front of me and dove into the flower at the top branch back there, laughing and dancing away when I got over my startle and tried to get it into the next shot.

The August Pride peach was all small green buds yesterday.

And way over here… ohmygoodness, clear signs of a gopher attack (am I right?) on the pear tree’s roots with quite a scoop of ground dug out near the trunk on one side and some gone from the other side, too. I dumped a load of moist topsoil on top, tamped it down again and again with my shoe, knowing the animal had to have retreated far into its burrow at my coming, and then I put a lot of cinnamon over the top. I know squirrels hate the smell and gophers are rodents too so that should help, right?

I have a few gopher plants standing guard halfway across the yard from there, volunteers and strays of last year, but they’re biennials so I don’t have any seeds yet to spread the love to where I need it–now those would be roots those critters would avoid. I was planning on doing so for my cherry trees at the far end of the yard because they’re prime targets. I didn’t know pear trees were. Maybe the thing just went for what it could reach first after digging under the fence. Maybe it dug under the fence to get away after the neighbors cut a tree down.

Looks like I’m going to have to go find me some more gopher plants somewhere, quick. 

The first peach tree officially pronounces it Spring.

I got a phone call after lunch from the nursery: the Baby Crawford peach tree I’d pre-ordered in September had arrived. And it was a very nice specimen, too, turns out.

Andy Mariani calls that variety the best-tasting peach in our particular climate and I’ve eaten some of his, which is why I wanted to plant my own–they were fabulous. They also fill a gap when our other peaches won’t be ripe.

I dug out the hole (I’d actually already dug it out a year ago and then didn’t put anything there for the drought, so it was no big deal to do it again), went and got the tree, planted it, and came inside to the news: Sam and Devin had eloped today.

We knew they were going to, just not when. I finally get to call him my son-in-law and you could not ask for a better one–within five minutes of meeting him I’d thought, I don’t know you but I HOPE you marry my daughter!

He makes her deeply happy and she makes him happy too. I cannot begin to say how grateful I am that he’s a member of our family now.

I had no idea I was going to be planting a tree, the best tree, in their honor and on their day. But I like it.

Well, that certainly worked.

He called me at about 4:30: there was a meeting about to start, please pick him up an hour late.

I checked the UV index: a grand total of zero. January, you’re wonderful.

I had enough lupus-friendly sun time to get out there and prune all four peach trees. A little more off the top here, trim this side a bit more… No pictures because there just wasn’t enough light by the time I finished, but I am quite pleased. I did it and it looks good and all the growth buds are pointing in the right directions and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

And we’re off to a good new year.

Growth happens at the top and the tips.

So, y’know, you kind of squint at that first peach tree, picturing the possibilities of, if you prune here and here, how will it shape its future self in response. The bud on this side of the limb will grow in that direction, the one a little lower on the other side, that’ll grow in the other and you don’t want that because you want the center opened up so light will get in and help make all the fruit sweeter. The sun is magical like that.

I need another growth bud over thisaway and honey there ain’t one.

That top got pruned last summer and still it’s way too high now but they say you don’t want to take more than a third of the tree away and there’s a lot of it up there.

You consider all these things and walk back inside with none of it done. Monday. Monday for sure. I need more staring time first to try to picture it all so I do it right.

(Well, that sounds good, anyway. I think I’m just a little afraid of it, and writing that out loud makes it sound as ridiculous as it is and easier to just get to it. Thanks, blog: I needed that.)

Yesterday, Parker wanted to go out to see his apple tree. His daddy explained that we have winter up here and what that meant but he wanted to see, and being ever ready to share the joy of my backyard orchard, especially with a grandchild, I went outside with him to inspect how the Fuji was doing.

It did still have a very few leaves left clinging. The other deciduous trees were bare now but one. So we talked about all the fruits and each in their season and all that was fine with him for it to be that way, he wasn’t disappointed like his father had been a little afraid he would be–he was simply learning new things. Winter bare, not from a book but in person. The leaves fall. Spring will come back when it’s time.

There was actually some fruit and greenery over to the left but he knew what those were and they didn’t interest him.

Today seemed like the right day to ask him: “Would you like to pick a lemon?”

His face lit up. “And make lemonade?!”

Me, grinning back: “And make lemonade.”

The Meyer happily had a few right in his reach. I mentioned it had thorns and to watch out for them and he was fine. He walked around the back of a peach (the Tropic Snow) to get to–oh wait, he liked that one next to it even better. It only just now hits me that I had said a lemon, so a single lemon was all he expected or took. Unlike sharing apple slices around the room, this was just going to be between him and me.

It took some pulling and a bit of branch coming with it because the lemon tree wasn’t entirely ready to let it go yet–but this early, they’re closer to pure lemons and less orangey. He skipped a little happy dance all the way back inside to the kitchen in great anticipation.

I found a cup-size strainer and showed him, bringing it down to his eye level again and again, how it caught the seeds and let the juice run through. See? More seeds on this other half of the fruit, too.

I added some water and sugar. Don’t skimp. He’s only just turned five. I poured half the lemonade into a second cup for me, tasted it, and added more sugar to his cup. Mine was sweet enough and very watered down and his definitely sweet and with great enthusiasm he pronounced it wonderful.

Meantime, Hudson was the ever-cheerful, outgoing little boy he always is even when he’s tired. Always ready to laugh. Always willing to wait his turn when I pay attention to his sister a moment. He’s an amazing little two-year-old.

As I sat on the floor, Maddy crawled up to me, patted me on the leg to get my attention, and held out a hand expectantly in clear expectation that I would blow on it. I did. She grinned. A few minutes later she stood up with her mommy holding onto her hands, let Kim let go, and instead of plopping right back down to safety or the highly tentative shifting of her weight onto the next foot forward she actually took two solid steps on her own coming towards me, falling down finally on the third. So close.

And given the sudden wail of frustration out of her that took us by surprise, I think she suddenly realized that she actually wanted to walk. That this was going to happen even if it meant giving up the comfort and safety and speed of the crawl. She needed this.

Soon, little one, so very soon.