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?

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.

Did more research on various tree possibilities and wanted to be ready for when we get them.

At 6 pm I started digging near where the olive used to be. At one point I positioned the spade upright as if it were a trunk and went back inside and sat down and looked over: yes, that will block the view of the neighbors’ windows just right, I don’t have to redo. That one’s the project I most want done.

Despite the amount of old decorative gravel needing lifting away it had gone fairly easily, and so as long as I was being ambitious I started in on the next spot. I wasn’t planning as big a hole this time, just enough to get something in there and let it take over from there. (Read: there was a lot less organic material and a lot more packed clay in the second area–it was a lot harder to get through and no matter how much I enjoy working in the dirt, I was tiring fast. Lots more rocks, lots more clipping away of old roots, too. Maybe I could do enough tomorrow to add soil amendments.)

Now when the stump grinder guy was here a few days ago, he found a black plastic water line that my husband had put in years ago. He was afraid of hitting it and for him to continue he needed me to write and sign a note absolving him of all responsibility should it go off. That was certainly reasonable and I did so. Worst case would be having to turn off the water to the house till Richard got home–I wanted those stumps gone and I wanted to be able to replant.

No problem, there was no breach, and when I went out later I found it pulled up out of the ground from here to here and tossed towards the fence and out of the guy’s way.

So I knew where it was.

I didn’t know there were two.

And yes, I hit it. There was a sudden small but intense geyser that just missed my $8888/pair hearing aids. What I still didn’t know was that there was a live electric wire just past that line well under that dirt and that I was lucky not to have severed that too, much less touched the water and electric together. Yow.

They had been run underground there by the guy whose house we bought 28 years ago. Power to the decades-unused/unworking-I-think timer box that I simply never notice (box? What box? Ooooh. That explains it.)

Richard’s take on it was that the guy seemed to have used probably the cheapest material he could and finding a match was going to be interesting. We were able to turn off the outside water to that side of the yard and that did shut it off.

Well, I can plant in the one spot for now….

That first hole better be big enough for whatever roots come home because I now know what runs past there. Digging that deep through that clay the entire length of that pipe to pull it out, with that power line–nope, not me.

But I’ve been marveling ever since: so *that’s* why I made that first hole so far forward from the fence. Who knew.

Madison. Hudson with a hammer, but I find I got no good pictures of Parker (thought I did). Hudson had given up his pacifier recently but with a cold he wanted that extra dose of comfort back for the moment and found one.

The stump grinder came today and our yard is now ready for whatever comes next. The big root I planted the Indian Free peach over? The six feet of it that showed above ground (I think it’s the same one, despite the distance between) is all gone now, along with the last of the trees taken out last week. All wood chips and mulch now.

I was looking around this evening and I found one perfect dark blueberry and brought it happily in for Richard. Who, after I handed it to him, popped it into my mouth with a grin.

The Babcock and Indian Free peaches are confirming that they will indeed bloom together, as we need them to. They are going to be glorious in spring in the years to come–I wish I could let you all inhale the sweet essence.

I had never seen a mango flower before in my life. Now I have. (The red dot is the top of a thermometer.) There is a whole new sprig of buds that wasn’t there last week.

We left the frost cover on while we were out of town to keep up the warmth at night, figuring one day of lower light wouldn’t harm the tree but one or two cold nights would. I’m sorry to say another honeybee snagged its toe in that cover and died.

So my putting the thing well away from the plants during the day has been a good idea. It also means the bees really want those mango flowers.

(Hoping the new try on the email finally fixes it.)

Madison at ten weeks is learning to smile.

Parker was disappointed that once again, we were not going to be at their house forever. His grampa explained to him that last time he had wanted us to stay longer, so this time we stayed an extra day for him.

Oh. And at that he decided not to cry that we were leaving him again but to be happy that he’d gotten what he’d asked for.

He went quietly off to bed rather than taking us to the airport, but Hudson came with us, with me sitting in the back next to him, and as we approached the airport his defiance of our being about to go away took the form of him teasing me, Yuh bag guy! (You’re a bad guy!)

No, I’m a good guy!

(Grin.) Yuh bag guy! (Tee hee!)

We got one last peek-a-boo game with him grinning ducking down into his carseat, hugs all around, a wave, and we were off to catch our flight. Which was delayed an hour, or as I put it, We win!

Bed after 1 am. Yawn.

(Edited to add, after LynnM’s and DebbieR’s comments: my email is up! It worked!!)

The first thing the two tree guys did, to my surprise, was to make a beeline for my Alphonso in great excitement. “That’s a mango, isn’t it!” as they took in the possibility that such a thing could actually grow here.

A taste of home, I wondered?

“See how the cord is tangled in the growth here?” (Looking back up at me.) “You need to set up a frame of something to hold up the lights, not on the tree.”

I’d known that for a long time but hadn’t figured out what to do nor how to make it work as the thing grew, but as he said that he could see it dawning on me: “Like a tomato cage,” I answered, turning to look at the (too tall for my frost cover, that one won’t work) very heavy cylindrical one across the yard that a friend had made us. I got it now: it didn’t have to be perfect forever, it just had to work well for right now.

“Yes.” And then the older guy wanted to know, re the tree, “Where did you buy it?”

“Florida.”

He both laughed and winced–a little hard to zip over there to check out the specimens, okay. They wanted to know about the temperature setup and the fact that you still have to put a frost cover over every night–Christmas lights for the heat, though, eh? And I wondered how long it would be before they’d be growing their own. I mentioned that we’d planted it the day before a 24 degree night, but hey, look. They approved.

A neighbor over thataway was having tree work done too and the younger guy and one of theirs apparently recognized each other and stopped to say hi across the fence in what was clearly a happy moment.

And then they got down to work.

The dracaena palm–out. The privet–out. The buckthorn–out.

There was a volunteer juniper bush, not very big yet but I was clearly not a fan–the guy motioned through the window at me and held a section upward, questioning? Yes?

Yes!

Alright! One whack of the chainsaw and it was gone and good riddance to the prickly little beast.

Then came the olive. It was to be trimmed downward a quarter and the deadwood cut off.

Except, with everything else out of the way we could finally get a good view of it and that really left nothing but trunk and a bit of froth and I didn’t see how it could survive–it had been near dead as it was.

Chris the boss man happened to stop by right as they got to that point, in just the most perfect timing; “How much to just finish it off?” I asked.

“A hundred fifty.”

I called Richard. Alright then. Out with it.

They cleaned up the job site, Chris having already gone on to the next, and that was that. The stump grinders will come later.

I never, ever, would have thought we could get that much sun in that part of the yard. Never. It has always been in dark shadow. But the afternoon sun was reflecting so brightly off the now-bare fence that my eyes complained. (But then, I’d spent too much time outside–I’m just glad it wasn’t June.)

We’ll have to plant something right away to fix that. Now that I know it’s got direct sun from 2:00 to sundown, and I’ll watch tomorrow to see how many more hours it will be, we have a whole lot more possibilities than we’d thought. Pomegranates, mandarins, a fig kept very small… We’ll see. They could easily grow there, and I never would have thought.

A squirrel perched on the empty fence line, staring, demanding that his personal escalators reappear, darnit.

All in good time, little guy, all in good time.

This is going to be hard. I like having that green outside the window, and it will take a few years for the new to fill in the blankness.

It shades the neighbor’s garden and our solar. It needs to be done.

The first time the tree people put us on the schedule, I both had the flu and was passing blood–just not the day to deal with one more thing nor to be around anyone. I’m fine now, and they called asking if tomorrow…?

Nesting season has begun but there are no discernible nests in that tree; that chickadee I saw with the moss was heading to some place beyond the fence, as have all the others as far as I’ve been able to tell.

I will replace it immediately with a dwarf citrus that will never get much higher than the fence, even if we never prune it.

We are also taking out a small volunteer palm whose roots threaten both the garage and the neighbor’s redwood. Out.

Chainsaws in the morning.

It’s lined. It’s thick. It’s plain. It’s simple. It’s in a good guy-type color.

And at long, long, long last, it is done for my brother who, when he moved to Colorado, there was hail the first week big enough to dent his car–in August! So he needed something wind- and snow-proof to the very best of my abilities. Merino and silk, 50/50, four layers when you fold up the brim. Merry Christmas, Morgan.

Although, they might need such a thing in Huntington Beach near Los Angeles, too–where, as they described it, people in shorts and Ugg boots were throwing snowballs today.

Good intentions, got up, got ready, and felt like okay, that’s it for now, I’m done.

I got talked into going anyway. And so we picked up Michelle and went to our favorite chocolatier downtown. (That car is not sitting in the middle of the chocolates display–it’s a reflection from outside.)

The other two went back over thataway to the left to chat a moment over where you can watch them making wonderful things while I drooped in a corner at the front, waiting. Timothy saw me and immediately sent Michelle over with one of their new pieces, wrapped in foil so that I didn’t have to eat it immediately if I didn’t want to. He caught my eye in happy anticipation and got to see my whole face change–my day had just gotten better on the spot, as he’d hoped. Thank you!

Adams, his partner, talked fruit trees with me briefly between customers: at their old house, they’d had eleven. The one he most had to tell me about, though, that he clearly most missed–was a rare-variety mango tree.

A fellow mango grower! I’d had no idea! I am so glad I went!

The chocolate everything was wonderful but I couldn’t eat it all. Most of my cuppa became a to-go–which is fine, it turns into a light ganache in the fridge and I’ll scoop some into my hot cocoa tomorrow and greatly improve it. I’m looking forward to it.

After dropping Michelle off, heading towards home to let me rest, my sweetie asked me what I most wanted done today.

Well, actually… He’d bought all the parts, and what I most wanted was to get the box set up that will turn the Christmas lights on and off based on temperature without my needing to be there. For the times we know we’re going to get home late but don’t want to cook the tree during the warmth of the day by simply leaving them on. For the times we go out of town. For taking care of my mango while giving me a little more leeway.

(Yeah, you can buy such things, but he does electronics like I do yarn. Create a little. Play.)

He was surprised at how much longer it took to do than he’d expected–he spent most of the rest of the day on it but he did it and it is ready to go. It’s not outside yet because by the time he finished it was 49F and falling fast and I’d already covered and lit the thing for the night. That, and, going back out there in the dark, um, hormonal skunks have been having hissy fits of late and I’ve luckily missed them so far. Barely, once.

Tomorrow, then. “It’s in Celsius, because, y’know. Scientists,” he told me, grinning. (And because converting it was going to take far more programming time than it was worth bothering over.)

While he was making that I was researching automatic watering systems. I want my trees’ health not depending on mine.

Oh and? There was a new cluster of buds today beginning in a new place on that mango. (YAY!!!!!) Not that I’m excited or anything. Oh no not at all.

I’ll have to bring Timothy and Adams one when I can. (Don’t worry, Dani, you’re still first in line.)

I went to a lecture once years ago by a Stanford professor who, with his grad students, had designed an aid to hearing aids: it was a kind of horseshoe-ish necklace with six microphones set in it, using the wearer’s own chest to help screen out background noise while relaying sounds up to the hearing aids. That which is straight ahead of you you can hear.

He tested it out on a woman with profound hearing loss on a very busy street. They faced each other and he spoke with that tremendous amount of low-pitched background noise going on right there, the very worst for wiping out the highest frequencies where the consonants of speech reside–and she heard every word clearly.

He said that when he told her it was a prototype only and that she had to give it back she burst into tears. She was desperate to own it. I can well imagine.

He then searched for a manufacturer willing to pick up on the idea but last I heard several years after, none had. He was custom-making them one by one at six grand apiece as any request came in.

At the time, six grand just staggered or I’d have asked for one, too, and we certainly debated the idea and the cost and wished. Only, my hearing aids didn’t even have the telephone coil that his setup needed in the first place, so there would have been replacing them, too, although, I have since. I don’t have t-coil now, either, I have blu-tooth going to a device connecting my phone and my $8888-a-pair aids and having not thought about him in awhile until today, am suddenly wondering if he’s still making them and if he’s updated his technology… (But can we come up with the funds. Same thought, just like the old thought.)

All this by way of mentioning an article I stumbled across about a company that was making special glasses for doctors to use during surgery and a friend of one such doctor thought they looked cool, could he try them on?

The right person in the right place at the right time asking the right nonchalant even almost flippant question, having no idea.

It apparently had not occurred to the company that they had created a solution for red/green colorblind problems, but suddenly they had a huge potential market and they are running with it.

Just in case you know someone this applies to. And whatever they’ll cost, let me tell you, it just can’t be all that much.

I was knitting in the waiting room today. My choices included kidney stone, kidney cancer, or an infection that would respond to antibiotics within four hours.

Yes please on the latter.

Thank you lab work. One dose down and just like they promised, it’s already starting to kick in. Sweet success.

Meantime, we hit 32 degrees last night and it was 43 under the mango cover–just above the limit of 40F where the inflorescences (flowering sets) die, not that there were any of those to worry about but one wants no cold spots.

Oh wait. While I was sick this past week–

–looks great to me!

(Views are from one side of the trunk and the other. Future leaves and branch in this one, inflorescence in the second view: we could actually get mangoes this year.)

(And then I go to…) Huh. My iPhone isn’t sending photos for some reason, even after I just deleted a hundred or two and I have no idea why. Anybody?

Well, anyway, trust me, the cluster of buds, it’s there.

And I might actually get that monster 250g worth of merino/silk hat finished while the weather’s being terrible in other places.

Edited to add, Richard to the rescue!

Let me say upfront that it’s nearly impossible to rile my husband. He’s calm, steady, seeks for understanding, he’s my rock. So I can’t imagine that he was anything but matter-of-fact in his statement. Me, on the other hand, I think I struggle a little harder at staying charitable when someone hits me right where I live. Literally. Even if we tell them they don’t know, they can’t possibly know, we remind ourselves, only those who live it can.

Although, the doctors and nurses at Stanford Hospital certainly do a good job of it. Good people. Yeah… That, “Oh I remember you!”

Our ward shares its church building with another ward and at the beginning of every year we flip which one has mornings and which the afternoons, whose toddlers get their nap time, who gets to sleep in.

There is an elderly woman in the other ward who–and this is the first year she’s done this–has decided she didn’t want to make that switch so she would just join ours. She probably has her favorite seat that her ward knows all about and she always goes there unless someone beats her to it, and that’s fine. We do too, going for where I’m most likely to hear, assuming no one else is there yet.

Two weeks ago she sat down right behind us (we always get there a little early, she, a little late) and started coughing hard. I apologized but got up and moved as far away as I reasonably could without making a scene (scoot down that bench…) Our ward knows. She had no idea, so we explained after the meeting was over and hoped that was that.

Last week someone beat her there–he was from out of town, visiting his grandkids. Directly behind us, clearly sick, coughing deeply. Given how fast and how hard that same cough would hit me a few days later, I can understand why getting ready for church he’d probably thought it wasn’t much. And I can certainly understand wanting to spend every minute with your grandkids you can (this being why I’ve been wearing face masks to church since Madison was born–I don’t want to be limited in when we can go see ours. But last week I forgot to bring one and there you go.)

The brainstem lupus had me fainting in the shower this morning, saved by the shower chair a dear friend dropped off last night when she heard. The tyranny of the ileostomy is that it does not care that you’re too sick to deal with changing the dressing every third day, you absolutely must and you must do every step right because one four-month staph infection is enough.

Hopefully all of this will be very short-term. I prefer my Crohn’s flares being in the past tense–and for the most part, they are, this is nothing compared to those two big ones: when my life was saved by an experimental med, when my life was saved by major surgery.

Michelle’s idea is that we should ask permission to place a box of face masks at the entryway for all who might need one to help themselves to. I think I should have one and a spare in my purse as it is.

Richard went off to church this morning. That same elderly lady sat down behind him after he got there.

And again she was coughing. A lot. While asking after me.

A short and sweet, “My wife is very ill. Someone was coughing right behind her last week.”

We bought plane tickets before all this started to go see our grandkids and to celebrate a birthday. Assuming we’re healthy.

—–

P.S. Rereading this I’m thinking, can you tell I’m ready to be done with this? And remembering the nurse I once apologized to at Stanford who comforted me with, and I’ll never forget the kindness of her words, “It’s okay to be grumpy: when our patients feel well enough to be grumpy it means they’re getting better and they want to go home.”

Last night Richard took care of the mango tree for me.

Tonight I turned the warming lights on and covered it over myself, claiming a little bit of normal life even though I’m far from feeling it–but it’s proof that today was better than yesterday. By far.

Still needing anti-nausea meds, though–the Crohn’s has been announcing itself along with the flu. Hopefully it will all settle down when the germs are over.