A note in my inbox. Oh good, it’s not a phone call nor telling me to come in to hear the news so this can only be good, right?

The needle missed and came up empty on endometrial cells altogether. Inconclusive.

The ultrasound is a month out (for now) and then surgery on the zombie fibroids and we’ll see what all else.

Meantime, I took a picture of February’s apricot sprout next to the third-year tree planted in the ground about that time. I chose the naturally dwarfing one for our yard: less work over time and it seems more resilient than some–its roots were fine with those recurrent atmospheric rivers when another one simply drowned.

I got a message asking if I had an Anya seedling I’d be willing to share? So the little one has been claimed.

And then I planted six more. Wherever they may end up, today needed a declaration that I wanted to put more trees into the future. So why not a fantastic apricot variety that can’t be gotten any other way.

(The wire racks were saved from an old double oven to make it uncomfortable for the rabbit to step on to eat the tree bark. So far so good.)

The blossoms continue upwards and my sour cherry tree is dancing for joy in a hoop skirt.

Meantime, my old friends Ron and Theresa at thebuffalowoolco.com have been selling the last of their bison/silk socks. They’re my husband’s One True Sock and we stocked up when they announced the cost of silk now is ending those and when they’re gone they’re gone.

But then the mill, using up the rest of the yarn, made a few more pairs.

The catch was that they were seconds.

Ron and Theresa and crew personally went over every single pair to make sure they were okay, and they were, but seconds are seconds and they knocked a chunk off the price.

When Richard opened the package yesterday (I got him something else too because socks for your birthday is officially a That Doesn’t Count gift no matter how much he likes them) it took me about a heartbeat. And then another.

Why they were seconds.

Their socks have a little bison motif knit across the toes and that motif is color-coded by size.

The XLs were yellow.

My mediums are yellow. His are supposed to be orange. It really speeds up the sock-sorting by a lot and I’ve always thought it was a nice touch on their part.

Ron confirmed it when I asked: someone at the mill had forgotten to change that yarn during the knitting.

I told him I’d laughed, because, of all the problems in the world right now? There’s more than one way to eyeball a sock size.

And I told him that surprising us with an extra pair that was bison/merino was very generous–and brilliant. Because someday my hubby will need more socks. And now he has a way to learn in advance that their other ones are great, too. But that was so unexpected and so cool to find tucked in there.

See? Socks *can* be a real gift!

The English Morello tree today: absolutely winter-bare on top, fully in bloom on bottom, gradually working its way up.

That is how I don’t have to do all the harvest work at once, but rather it’ll be one hour every morning picking and pitting and weighing and freezing. One morning per future sour cherry pie for two weeks; after that, I told Constance on Monday, I get tired of it and call friends to come pick the rest. She laughed.

Part of it though is that I want them to see that if it’s their favorite pie, too (and it usually is), if they have room to plant a bush they can grow their own pretty quickly.

So. I’d pulled the last bag out of the freezer to celebrate her. A ceramic pan for the crispiest crust.

Loaves and fishes, way in the back of the freezer where I’d checked three times I just found another bag.

You know that has got to be gone by the first of June to make room for the new. Such a problem. Not.

That first one: it came up not in the Root Riot plug but tucked down the side of it.

The next came up today from where it was supposed to.

I searched for images of the cotyledons of both: turns out some varieties of sunflowers do closely resemble some varieties of zucchini at that stage.

So whether those big first leaves are of the squash I planted or if that seed was plucked out and a wandering one from last year helpfully tucked back in by a jay, I’ll have to wait for the true leaves to tell.

I suddenly wondered if my nose would know and took a deep breath. It was very familiar. I’ve planted both before. Yup. It’s definitely one or the other.

I had only planted two zucchinis, then did a third Wednesday after that first one came up so oddly placed–because who needs more than one zucchini plant in their garden? Two was pushing it, but I really ought to have a backup.

Said the woman who had one long ago that vanished bit by bit and then in its entirety down a gopher hole. It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon come to life.

That reminds me. I need to go buy gopher cages to put them to ground in. Locally invented.

I can just see that bunny out under the mandarin tree rubbing its paws in gleeful anticipation.

I knit a little extra yesterday, figuring I might not be up to much today. Good thing.

So life took up some of the slack: to my surprise, an apricot kernel I’d given up on pushed out its cotyledon towards the light.

That one had grown a root so I’d tucked its plug into a much larger pot and then it had just sat there for days. I wondered if it was starting to rot?

The move into the sunlight cleared away any sign of that.

It wasn’t a whole spray of true leaves opening all at once along with the first two like the earlier seedlings; it’s just barely started. But they are big and thick and promising. It was in the upper 30s out there the last two nights so I can hardly blame them for moving a little slowly at first–hey, today, me, too.

But that new one is growing now and hopefully will be for decades to come while creating good food, oxygen, wildlife habitat, and maybe someday kids climbing it to pick its fruit when I’m just a story in their grandparents’ memories, and the very sight of it delights me no end.

Reading up on raised planter boxes, red cedar vs all kinds of other options. Metal painted to look like wood? Um… The idea of not having to bend over sounds really tempting, but the idea of making it so the bunny can’t jump in is the real reason I went looking. (The dog next door barked. The bunny popped up in my yard right on cue while I was browsing.)

Thirty inches? Bunnies can jump that high, says he.

Straight up? Not that high, says me, wishing it to be so.

Oh yes they can.

So I thought I’d throw it out there: has anyone bought/built/used garden planters, and do you recommend what you got? Did it keep any critters away? Or would an on-the-ground be a might-as-well.

March comes in on clumsy feet, kicks the trashcans down the street… Two warm days got things going and tomorrow the rain and chill come back.

Apricot seeds seem to get a better start in direct sun rather than behind a window, so the ones that had started to show signs of life were now outside in pots.  Three had leaves, two, just the beginnings of a tap root.

Five still-dormant ones were inside in their Root Riot plugs to keep a closer eye on because those can dry out fast. I knew I would need more pots and more soil soon.

There was this one out there that had a tiny white stub showing that on the others had turned into a cluster of leaves within a few hours–but not that one. The very tiniest discernible change took two days.

I considered its reluctance to thrive and said a quiet prayer: could You help the ones that would make great fruit to grow and thrive and end up where they’ll do the most good for somebody and the ones that wouldn’t to not encumber the time and water it would take to find out?

Yesterday morning that slow-mo seed was on top of the soil near the edge of the pot. Uprooted. Stabbed. No claw digging around it, no sign of a squirrel.

But at least the seed was still there to let me get a good detective-eye look at it, which was a nice touch.

I wondered how birds clean the dirt off their dinner and considered the fact that some types of apricot seeds are supposed to be sweet.

Today it wasn’t there. Nor was the other one out there that had cracked open and sent out the beginnings of a root but didn’t have leaves yet, nope, picked right out of the Root Riot within the pot to parts unknown. Definitely birds.

A little later a scrub jay flew onto the patio. Crows in blue finery. It was the first time I’ve seen one there in a year, the mockingbirds having bested them last year. It landed on the outside of a window ledge where I’ve never seen one land before because it really didn’t fit, tail and rear end smushed up hard against the wall behind it where it could guard its new territory: looking at me, looking at those three other pots lined up, looking at me. Novel take on a bird feeder ya got there, lady, don’t mind if I do.

Those last three had leaves–but the seedlings were so young that they hadn’t absorbed all the nutrients from the kernels yet, so the split halves were rounded little brown wings flapping and clapping and cheering on the little stalks stretching for the sky and clearly they still looked nicely tasty.

No you don’t. Those are mine. I found a small bird netting tent to fit over two of them and a mesh for the third.

Well, huh. I did say that prayer… Thanks for Darwinning those two for me, Jay!

And now I have two already-prepared large pots waiting for the next ones to wake up. Does that mean I’m done letting myself be told which ones are of future goodness? Hey, there’s more than one way to kill a plant, trust me, I’m good at it. Bumped into one pot last year and knocked it off the table right on its head. Once you snap it below the leaf line it’s done.

And over in that corner, I got my first set of tomato leaves today. Yay! Happy March!

Go grow things, it’s fun!

One whole side of the pomegranate tree popped out in small reddish new leaves overnight, officially declaring winter over. It had looked utterly dormant yesterday. Yay!

Things are starting to wake up.

In case anyone hasn’t heard: there is a move afoot to show the power of the people to those bent on ascribing it all to themselves.

Note that Jeff Bezos today announced that there will be no dissenting editorializing at his Washington Post from here on out: only those that support his vision of what ‘freedom’ means as he supports the current administration.

He asked the Opinions editor if he could agree to what he was being told to do, and Shipley said no. He is out.

Politico marveled, for a man supposedly bright about business, having already lost a quarter million subscribers in reaction to his exerting control over the editorial section before last Fall’s election, Bezos didn’t even try to hide it.

We have recourse. Friday, there’s a call for all to stop being consumers for one day: no buying (in some quarters, an exception is made for paying in cash to local small businesses, ie helping the little guy and not sending off a percentage of their earnings to the big banks via credit cards). No Amazon, no opening ads in your inbox, no shopping, no big corporations. Show our power of the purse to those whom that’s all they care about, to those who are cutting funds to the poorest (Medicaid, starving people, my stars) to give more to the richest.

Go on financial strike. Show them who’s really boss.

Just for a day.

There may need to be more.

Let’s see if Bezos lets it be reported on.

Note that Jennifer Rubin, lawyer and as of about a month ago a now-former editorial writer at the Post (her column was named Right Turn for her Republican take on politics, until Trump 1.0), co-founded “The Contrarian: not owned by anybody” a few weeks ago with one of the lawyers from the first impeachment hearing and it is already up to half a million subscribers. Nice.

Four Anya apricot kernels I planted this year have started to sprout, and the fastest two went from showing a tiny white nothing of a stub yesterday evening to a raised baby fist of leaves today in a rapidly-opening, deepening green. It never gets old.

At 14″W x 11″ H the pots I put the rooting plugs in are big enough for the trees to grow in for this year while being small enough for me to be able to lift to give away after they do.

I have more kernels still than I thought I would, so if anyone would like to try to grow some of these, I’ll be glad to send you some.

The original orchard referenced in that article was torn down and replaced with almond trees because they paid the bills better, which is absolutely gutting. Because there are no apricots like these apricots.

(And now to go start some tomatoes…)

First peach flower of the year. (Tree pruned by a tumbling raccoon its first year. It got that one first-year peach, though, so it was okay with that.)

p.s. Wallace the Brave, just for fun.

The folks who bought the house next door a few months ago were thrilled at being offered an apricot tree.

Of the three Anya seedlings I had left, this one was as nearly perfectly balanced as you could ask for, a beautiful specimen. It’s the one that grew only a few inches tall its first year after its growth tips had died while we were out of town (the 4″ vitamin K-uptake-killing coir pot hindering leaf production did not help) but it was still alive so I kept watering it. Last year it hit 53″. It’ll be standing on its tiptoes to wave hi over the fence before you know it.

I explained that I’d chosen a smaller one for my yard for its late leafing-out and its slower growth for my limited space. I’d almost put the big one in anyway just because it’s such a perfect, healthy tree.

Big was fine with them. They knew exactly where they wanted to plant it, and when they told me, I told them that’s where the former owners had kept their garden for years. A very good sunny spot and it’ll have plenty of room. Very cool.

They told me of losing a plum tree to disease at their old house and how hard that had been.

Their big tree on the other side of the house, I told them, is a Santa Rosa plum that was there when the sellers’ parents had moved in about 60 years ago. They will have their plums back.

So now this tree has been dolly’d to its new home. And if by chance either theirs or mine ends up needing a pollinator–and having one always helps anyway–there will be one right on the other side of the fence, same mother tree but already clearly just different enough.

While the adults were talking, their little boy discovered our toy corner and in great excitement with each discovery arranged all our Hot Wheels into a curved-just-so traffic line behind the big yellow Tonka truck leading the way. And life is good.

More Anya apricot seeds went out in the mail, with a few left.

It is going to be cold and (finally!) rainy the next five days here, which feels fitting: the skies themselves mourning those lives lost in the air crash in DC.

James Fallows, pilot and reporter, says helicopters are forbidden above 200′ in that airspace. The New York Times says they were at 300′ and a half mile off the course directed by the controller–and that the helicopter pilot had flown that route before and knew those restrictions before they hit that plane.

It took me straight back to my mom’s close friend’s agony waiting to hear whether the father of her children during his commute home had been on the 14th Street bridge that another plane from National (now Reagan Airport) hit 40 years ago after not de-icing. He was not heard from for hours–but he was safe.

All those rescuers on those cold waters, hoping to be able to deliver that same news to other families but seeing only wreckage and worse.

Knitting. I tell you. Six rows again today. Needed to. Bright colors, fishy fish, creation-ing.

That second octopus’s last arm is just going to be too short if I don’t add another strand and put up with weaving its ends in, too. (Appraising look.) Nope. I’ll never be satisfied with it if I don’t. First thing tomorrow.

Remind me to break off a longer piece next time.

Notable quote of the day from Robin Givhan of the Washington Post: “Patriotism is like the love that a parent has for a child; nationalism is akin to believing that one’s child can do no wrong.”

Meantime, I did six more afghan rows and I figure if I can keep that up I can finish it in under two months.

But what feels like the big thing is I went out there and pruned back the pomegranate tree by a third. Not even the tree companies like that job, or at least not their employees the one time I hired it out.

We were running out of January, though, and January is the time of year not only when it’s dormant but when its needle thorns are the least stabby (oh look there’s a splinter), though they are definitely still there. I skipped the pruning last year. Bad idea.

As I said to Richard afterwards, It was encroaching on the sour cherry and I would much rather have more sour cherries than thorny pomegranates. And not be stabbed at while I pick them.

So. Many. Branches. Thin, flexible, and in no way up to holding up the heavy fruit to come; instead they bow way down under the weight, like a cross between a porcupine and a weeping willow wearing jewelry.

Its haircut improved it immensely. I finally wised up and went looking for heavy gloves before reaching for the pile of cuttings.

My gardener cleared out a spot among the California Coffeeberry plants, dug a generous hole, didn’t knock himself out with the spade bouncing back at his head like I did one time when I tried to do that, and planted one of my Anya apricot seedlings that had been waiting for that moment for four years. Finally finally finally in the ground!

I may do some more pruning back of those Coffeeberries. Let some more light in.

I was feeling pretty exuberant about it all when the phone rang: my friend Karen, wanting to stop by. Sure!

We had a great visit and I dragged her out there to see my tree. I had four. I’d chosen the one that had leafed out the latest in the year last year so that its future blooms would be less likely to get hit with a freeze.

Which turned into her being thrilled that she got to go home with another one, the only one in a small enough pot that I could carry it to her car. The first time she’d driven, she told me, since breaking her arm. Much better now.

Ohmygoodness!

Her son would get it out for her and help her plant it, no worries, and meantime we were both pleased at how the tree and pot fit in there just so so that it wasn’t going to fall over and the thin limbs weren’t going to break.

Another hour or two and I was taking the trash to the curb. The new neighbor stepped out the door just as I got to the sidewalk, taking her toddler for a walk to see the sunset.

Even 350 miles away, we’re having spectacular ones from the fires down south. But anyway.

I mentioned about Andy’s and how they sell these particularly good and juicy apricots and (taking a leap) I had seedlings from them; would they like one?

Her face lit up. I would love an apricot tree! How big is it?

She had her choice, I said, with the biggest being 53″ tall, but they would have to help me get it to them. Check with her husband and let me know.

Meantime, if anyone wants to try to grow some of these from seed, let me know. I have some this year.

Our guests were back here in time for dinner. They’re leaving around 5 a.m. for their cross-country flight home and I will miss them so much.

Heading out, the burning question is, will those Reine Claude Green Gage plums from Andy’s grow in Maine?

I told her Trees of Antiquity not only sells them but considers that variety the best tasting stone fruit they have. They’d be a good one to ask–and I reminded her that our Sam grew a Meyer lemon in Vermont because she wanted to enough. Go for it.