I had never had a fresh persimmon in my life before I moved here, much less known that there are two types and that if you want the Hachiya kind, you pretty much have to live near a tree. Shipping is not the strong point of a fruit that is ripe when the texture becomes a soft jelly inside.

Last year my neighbor with the persimmon tree let me help her pick and give away several hundred pounds’ worth this time of year and even so I only got to about half; the rest were too high for my telescoping fruit picker.

She sent me a note looking forward to my coming again this year and I considered for about a nanosecond, picturing that quite heavy, awkward pole and prongs swinging well above my head and the way I occasionally managed to crash it down last time, hopefully but not always entirely controlled… No, I argued with myself, just no way, this is not my year for it, concussion-wise, I couldn’t dare. Too much risk.

I offered to find replacement pickers if she needed the help and she had someone else who wanted to, no problem, thanks. And that was that.

I thought. Wistfully.

There was a bag at our door. She wanted to wish me good health and she hadn’t wanted me to miss out–she knew how much I liked them.

Suddenly it’s a harvest year to remember in a good way. I was not expecting that. Verklempt.

Last night I made the spiced pecans and baked the chocolate tortes and bought the apple cider and was glad my part in Thanksgiving dinner was done.  All but the glaze on the tortes, no biggy.

Only, I hard-crack-staged the sugar syrup and those pecans were right at the edge of too caramelized. Crunchy, though, and I really liked them, but there was a bit of fussing while someone here was trying not to be unhappy but they just weren’t quite…

No problem, I can make more.

No I couldn’t. We didn’t have enough sugar. We always have sugar. (Can you make this with that grainy organic Trader Joe’s stuff? Better not experiment and mess any more with his family’s tradition.) You know what this means, don’t you? We had to go to the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving.

I toasted more pecans, but that was the easy part. We put it off and put it off and finally headed to Costco about an hour before they closed.

It was actually less crowded than a typical Saturday, to my great surprise–but even better, people were being mellow. Clearly anticipating the next day’s meal and company, and people seemed to be picking up that one last thing they’d forgotten.

There was one mom with a crying one year old and a toddler and she–the mom–absolutely melted when I pulled out a Peruvian finger puppet for each of her little ones, an orange lion with a furry mane and a vivid green octopus with a hat. Handknit as always.

So. The tortes got glazed. The pecan coating got done to the soft ball stage only, the way Richard likes it: because after I got the 1/2 c water/1 c sugar/1 tsp cinnamon boiling, there could be gadgetry involved and there is no better way to get a geek to take over than putting electronics into the process. He put a glass thermometer on the side and with the laser thermometer in his hand pointing constantly at the center of the pot he compared temps and kept up a happy running chatter and soon announced, There! It’s 238!

Already?

Okay, so I put in the vanilla (one teaspoon) and stood back as hot steam burst forth, and then–hey, you have to put in the *pecans immediately now, honey, not just admire them.

Right, right, and he dumped them in and stirred hard and it takes some doing at that point. Finally, he poured them onto the cookie sheet the pecans had been toasted on.

See? To softball stage and it comes out like this!

I grinned. He preferred his and I liked mine and Aunt Mary Lynn will be quite happy to have both. Trust me.

(Meantime, it’s 9:50 pm and 33F already and the mandarins are covered, too, tonight. It is COLD out there.)

*Fanny Farmer says two cups. I put in closer to four. Stretch that sweetness across as many nuts as possible as far as I’m concerned.

You’re going to need a second strand these next few nights, said he over Monday’s dinner.

I had gotten home 9:45 Friday night, the tree was uncovered till then, and some of the upper leaves crisped a bit.  If I’d known things were going to take that long I’d have done it before I left, but too late now. And now we had the coldest weather of the year coming–he was right, and so I wound a second strand around the mango leaves, watched them light up as I plugged them in and wondered how long my supply of bulbs was going to last. I’d already had about eight burn out last year.

Some friends called this afternoon: could they drop by with some Christmas lights? The warm, inefficient, not made anymore kind. For my tree–did it need it?

Yes please!

They showed up with buckets and boxes and more boxes on top of that, taking three trips to carry them all in, with them happy to find a good use for them and me happy to have them. Some hadn’t even been opened. Yay!

And so we chatted a bit. They asked about the birdfeeder and I mentioned the resident hawk.

Who put on a show right on cue, flying overhead. Twice. But the best part was how excited they were that they got to see it.

It’s cold out there.

She mentioned she hopes she gets to taste one of those mangoes someday. Absolutely.

It’s quite warm tonight under those frost covers.

Rain blessed rain, we were doing it Camelot style again: mostly in the middle of the night. It stopped, the sun broke through here and there as we got up and started the day, and then it started in again.

At one point the thunder and lightning were nearly simultaneous as we heard that huge BOOM. Richard was working from home rather than out driving in that and we held our breaths a moment.

The power held.

It came to .54″ here at the eye of the storm.

I was finding and getting rid of kinks from a pattern and feeling productive.

Finally, the sun was out but going down fast–and the Christmas lights weren’t coming on. Huh. It’s getting cold, they sure should be by now. I checked everything, and then with Richard searching for ideas I did again. Breakers were all good. Everything’s plugged in and set. Had a squirrel chewed through the cord under the tomato bush?

Did you check the box?

Of oh course! And so it was, his Rube Goldberg of a thermostat was somehow dead, why, we have no idea. So I bypassed it and simply plugged the lights directly into the orange cord and ta daah!

And… The Acurite was blinking. We changed the batteries and I cleaned off the mud outside and the surprising little bit that had somehow gotten inside, but the temperature sensor part, which I use to read the temp under the mango cover without having to go outside, was still dead.

Two sets of electronics knocked out by the rain. The sensor is designed to be outdoors but the instructions say not to leave it where it will get wet. Um. It’s never been a problem before.

It wasn’t going to do me any good inside, though, certainly, so since the station part wasn’t blinking anymore I might as well try. I stuck it back under the mango cover.

It came back to life! Within an hour, but not in the first five minutes, I know that. Maybe it had just needed to dry out? It’s clearly working fine now.

Maybe I should explain that the rain reader is a third gizmo around here… Who knew we would turn into such weather nerds?

(Oh and? Last week’s falls didn’t improve my balance and I fell out there again. Twice. Always did like splashing in mud puddles as a kid but somehow I missed those, just the cushy bushes.)

I ran in the ends after I took the picture: the hat (after frogging and redoing the decreasing at the top), it is done. Tomorrow I get to give it to the friend who so much earned it and who has no idea it’s coming and I can’t wait.

Yarn: Cascade Longwood, a soft, superwash merino. If it matters to you, note that the Peruvian-milled and more recent Chinese-milled stock have different gauges, with the Chinese being thinner last I bought any. Their 220 yarn, too.

Meantime, I’m trying to figure out how to safely snap clamshells over the figs. When they go from being held straight up to stem up and fruit downward it’s a good thing, and mine are starting to get there.

And if you’re curious, NPR has a story here of how cultivated blueberries came to be. It took one determined woman a hundred years ago with just enough information, a little land, luck, help, and a whole lot of determination.

And neighbors willing to take walks through the woods.

It got down to the 40s last night and it will tonight, too; it was time. I restrung the Christmas lights on the mango tree (I’ll clearly need another strand this year) and had to remember how to program Richard’s homemade thermostat. 13C is a little low–I changed it to trigger on at 14C, not sure if the line was connected all the way given the tomatoes growing over it.

They clicked on about 9:00 pm. Okay, that works. No cover quite yet.

Meantime, the Meyer lemon leaves were showing a bit of yellow and needed some micronutrients; I stopped by Yamagami’s Nursery.

Where I found myself in a conversation with one of their people and he was an avid fruit tree enthusiast so of course we hit it right off.

I described the bugs that had utterly devoured my sour cherry’s first attempt at leafing out, that I had caught in the act on the second round, just a giant horde of black beetles, so many that they were climbing all over each other in their attempts to get at those leaves and I asked if they were Japanese beetles?

“Sure sounds like it. They only come out at night.”

“Yup!”

(I had read that traps just attract more to your yard, so I wasn’t surprised when he said) “And nothing kills them. There’s really nothing you can do.”

In happy anticipation of being able to help, I grinned, “Oh yes there is”–and I told him what I’d done. Having found a suggestion online, I’d asked around for the ashes from anyone’s barbecue grill, was given about a half gallon’s worth, and I went out that night and doused those beetles with that powder.

They struggled and fell off immediately and died, and according to what I’d read, it breaks their joints. Very satisfying. As was watching the doves pecking around near the base of the tree later. Git’em!

And then, what I didn’t say to him but should have, was, I then scattered those ashes across those leaves every night and rinsed them off in the mornings so that they could get their sunlight. Back on at night as a protective layer. And it worked.

He had this excited ‘Wait till I tell Nancy…!’ look in his eyes. And I came away feeling like I had just solved a big problem for a whole lot of people. Spread the word. Grill baby grill! I wish I could put the real credit where it belongs but I don’t remember where I found it; I do remember I spent a fair amount of time trying to look up an answer to that very vexatious problem, so afraid I was going to lose that tree, so I’m hoping this post will help the next person find the idea a little faster.

Ashes for crashes, grill dust is a must.

An elderly friend needed a ride today and so I got to spend some time with Gail.

We talked gardening and trees a bit and she laughed as she remembered what her father had planted when she was a kid: a bitter almond tree and a sweet almond tree. She told me, The squirrels never touched the sweet almonds. Because of the bitter!

If they only knew, right?

I remember once when Robin discovered a chocolatier who did the most exquisite work. Reading her description was a good way to go on a chocolate torte baking binge if nothing else, and it was before Timothy Adams was available as a local remedy for such a keen oh-I-(quietly)-wish.

And then, you guessed it, a little while later there was a surprise box in the mail: they came in a delightful little hinged wooden box, so perfect in presentation in every way and then, oh wow! Definitely lived up to their descriptions.

She hadn’t wanted me to miss out.

There were two last plastic produce clamshells for the season on the Fuji tree last week guarding the goods from the squirrels, one at the upper right inside the fork in the dark branch here, you can see right where I picked, and one at the lower left corner. I opened the upper one Friday after a friend of ours did me a big favor with a physical task beyond my abilities. (I’ve started him a hat. He doesn’t know that yet.) He loves a good apple and to him it was the perfect thank you.

So I was standing where I took this photo from looking up right there into that part of the tree the day before Robin passed and there was no sign whatsoever that these blossoms were coming to be.

But I think I know now why I felt I needed to go back out there today and pick that very last apple of the year. Not tomorrow. Go see now. I did, staring in disbelief, and than ran for the camera.

Someone had sent me the most heavenly bouquet of apple flowers. In October.

Tuesday, there were these tiny bits at the (okay, what’s that word for the armpits of the branches against the trunk–coming back two minutes later to add, I just have node idea) on the fig tree that I thought might become the breba crop of next spring.

And then we had an unseasonably hot week with more of the same predicted.

Today, with zero expectation of seeing anything different, on a whim I went to go take a good look.

Blink. Eight figs. Eight actual figs. In October. On what was a whip in March with badly-strangling roots that I had to cut apart so I could plant the thing, with the tree kind of sitting there for a month or two while they recovered and took the measure of their new environment.

That little tree clearly just wanted to do what it was created to do.

So what would you do with a volunteer tomato taking over the yard, flowering month after month but never setting a single fruit while the other tomatoes do? Keep waiting? Rip it out before it takes any more nutrients from the cherry tree above?

So that’s what was on my mind as I stepped out the door to start the Tuesday watering.

I’d noticed the little junco for a few days now.

Clearly I wasn’t the only one.

There it was on the box again, right next to me as I stepped onto the patio. With one eye gone and the other warily watching the sky, it didn’t take off till after I went past it and turned back again.

That post yesterday about being the boss of this place?

There, up on the telephone wire. I mentally apologized to the Cooper’s hawk for wrecking his breakfast and quickly got back in the house and out of the way.

He stayed there patiently another minute or so, feathers unruffled but a sure thing gone.

For now.

I finished the watering tonight and went off to the first night of a new knitting group; Alex found herself with a copy of my lace shawls book as a thank you. May there be many happy memories there to come.

I was asked if I would, said sure no problem, and ended up back at the DMV to ask for a one-day permit for driving the PNO van.

And got told no, the buyer needs to come in and get that. But they spelled out all the fees he would have to pay and they were half what he was expecting. Cool. I’m quite happy to make his life easier.

Then this evening I was out working in the yard, noting how much faster the late sun fades now. The camphor tree had several thick clumps of thin, weak sprouts from where it had previously been trimmed by Chris’s crew and those had gotten tall enough to start shading a few fruit trees a bit and this would not do. It’s easier to remove those when they’re new.

So there I was with this big trimming hook overhead when suddenly to my left a raven took off from the redwood tree just past the fence, heading towards my backyard.

Watching it come, I waved my arms as if to shoo it away as soon as it came past the shed.

Darn if the thing didn’t do an immediate abrupt turnaround and go straight back to that tree. If it was testing me it was conceding that it had been caught.

I’ve seen you chase my Cooper’s hawks and trying to steal their catches. I know you would kill my songbirds’ babies and that your population has been exploding while theirs are just hanging in there. You know I own this yard. Not you.

Then it came again.

There was nothing I could have done to keep it from doing what it wanted to do.

I waved again.

It again braked hard mid-air as if its heels sought to connect with something to help and again it veered back to where it had come from, swooping behind the redwood this time as if to hide.

Here it comes again.

Once is an oddity, two is curious, three and more, definitely a pattern–I started counting, watching, letting the camphor take care of itself a moment; nothing here but that raven and me.

I surely looked ridiculous. I was just a powerless little thing on the ground and its flights were almost as high as the top of that redwood. Each time it came in in a path that would take it straight over my back yard and me in the middle of it, but each time I would wave my arms just before it was quite overhead and each time it would stop right there, wings raised high flapping hard not going one inch further, then sharply away. The times it spent disappeared into the back of the tree became a few seconds longer.

The thirteenth time it retreated at last not to the redwood but across the clear open sky above several neighbors’ houses, one beyond the other, getting smaller and smaller and gone.

Yeah, like I trust that–I kept staring.

One potato, two potato, ten potato, coming from the left again with the redwood having been cover for part of its way back and here it came again. Whether it was determined to go where it wanted to go in the path it wanted to go in if I would just stop paying attention to it or whether it was simply a young one having fun playing a game with me and enjoying the attention–and corvids do play–I don’t know. But from there we went through three more redwood-to-almost-t0-me runs.

Territory: understood. Dominance: mine.

Finally, on round sixteen, it really did head way away, faster this time, across that open treeless airspace and at last that was the end of that.

I know crows and ravens recognize human faces and teach their young to at least the second and third generation to respond to those same faces. I can only wonder if this one had a family memory of a human with a gun.

Exactly two weeks ago the red leaves and the branches they stem from, some over a foot long now, did not yet exist. Only the green. I keep going outside and snapping photos every day and comparing because there are noticeable changes by evening from the mornings. Go mango grow!

Meantime, this was the Saturday and Sunday in October when the Mormon Church has its general conference in a series of two-hour sessions.

I had been letting worrying about my hands keep me from doing long stints of knitting for too long now–a half hour at a time, maybe, and the limitation was frustrating. I decided this was my chance to see what I really could do if I pushed myself, and so as we listened I got eight hours of knitting done on my shawl, with long icepack breaks between sessions.

I needed to know I could still do that. It went better than I had any expectation of while it let me fall in love with knitting all over again. The Matisse Blue is so pretty in person and the merino silk Malabrigo so soft that I never wanted to put it down.

They’ve had a good workout but there’s no tingling in the wrists: I think we’re okay here. In relief, onward!

The mango tree’s latest, to left and right, including that cluster of four that was almost upright yesterday and sideways today and already starting to swoop up again at the ends tonight, just doing what mango branches do. (For scale, those are tomato leaves in the background.)

So what I had expected to post about yesterday was that an old friend from back home showed me a picture of her toy raven for her team: she measured it 9″ beak to tail and asked if I might make it a Baltimore Ravens scarf so it could be properly attired. Maybe a half inch to an inch wide and a foot long?

Of course I would! (Oh if only all knitting requests could be that easy!)

I googled the colors and thought, bright gold and deep dark bright purple? Even with the size of my stash, do I have those at all? I wondered how long it would take to beg a yard or two from friends’ remnants because I was pretty sure I would need to. Or to buy them.

And then I found it: the bag that held what hadn’t been knitted up yet of the yarn that Melinda at Tess Designer Yarns had completely surprised me with a couple months ago. I wondered if she’d wondered why she was doing it, but she’d put in a half ounce each of worsted-weight soft wool in, you guessed it, exactly the shades of gold and purple I would later be looking for. Neither of us had any way to possibly know. I both laughed and looked at it a little bug-eyed–they were so exactly perfect. Wow. Thank you, Melinda!

The green tape measure had just verified that it was 12″ long, perfect, and I was halfway through that little bird’s quick bit of scarf and hoping to beat the mailman when the doorbell rang yesterday and I threw it down on the footrest to run go answer. This is the picture I took a few hours later after I came back from all that sudden whirlwind.

Kinda mango branch shaped there, isn’t it? 

And look at it now. A weekend ago it was shorter than the stake and all those groups of new leaves were each just one fingernail-sized dormant-looking bud at the branch ends. I suddenly have a lot more mango tree.

Meantime, I grabbed Michelle and treated her to chocolate at our favorite shop to share pictures from our trip and catch up a bit. We walked in and suddenly there were dairy-free truffles created on the spot just for her. In an allergic world where food in public can be a difficult thing, I love how good they are at making her at home.

Someday, when they’re not too busy (but I’m glad their shop is busy), I’ll ask the owners about the timing of tipping that top point. They’re the only people I know who once grew a mango tree.

Oh wait, of course! I take that back: Dani grew up with one. In India, though, so not the same climate. Still…

So we had a guy out to talk about our solar panels. His company was offering something that I don’t think existed when we installed ours: an inverter that separates out each panel, so that if one gets shaded the others still work.

Ours is an all-or-nothing system and there’s a redwood next door, so it was definitely worth getting a quote to replace that part.

When all that was done he was interested in asking about the fruit trees, and it being early evening I walked back out there with him and Richard. He wanted to know what everything was.

“A mango?!” He thought that was so cool.

Cherries, there and there, mandarins, there and there. “Peaches for June July August September,” I said, pointing one two three four, noting that the biggest was only planted in February but it was standard root stock vs the semi-dwarfs and also had better sun.

A few more steps, then, “That lemon tree looks so healthy,” he said, admiring how loaded its branches were with small green fruit. He reached up to touch one. “Meyers are sweeter, right?”

“Yes, they’ve got some tangerine in their parentage.”

“Wow, you guys could open a fruit stand with all that!”

Except… And then he told us about his plum tree, how the squirrels bit into his plums and then threw them down without finishing and made a huge mess he was having to clean up–with the implied thought of, and they don’t even leave me any.

We know how that goes.

It was clear he’d wished for more fruit trees if it weren’t for that. And we knew how that goes, too.

We were standing in front of my plum tree as he mentioned this and I pointed out the clamshells on the apple next to it and why. I told him about the raccoon that ate the plastic (no shards on the ground anywhere), ate the apple, and then never touched another clamshell again, not last year nor this nor any possible descendant of theirs. It had worked.

“Oh so that’s why…” (Yeah, I know they look pretty. Not. But hey it works!)

And over there… “I *love* figs!”

I told him mine was in a pot to keep the shallow roots from causing damage.

He was clearly eager to learn more. It was great fun. I think some nursery is about to make a sale.