I saw a peregrine falcon today! It was near Stevens Creek (near you, Don) dancing in the air currents and then flying low over my car so I could get a close look. In a blink, I saw details on feathers, that its crop was full; it had just enjoyed a good meal and it was shooting the breeze with me. (I drove safely.)

Meantime: the plum tree on Sunday evening and the plum tree twenty-four hours later.

It’s supposed to rain the next two days.  I’m picturing a giant umbrella keeping the pollen from washing away before its time? How much time does the tree need it for? Yo, bees, quick, wake up?

But it intrigues me that all the blossoms, no matter where they are or whether their branch might seem to block them, are oriented in the direction of the path of the sun.

The blossoming of the plum tree, day one.

I hadn’t seen any birds at the feeder in awhile and wondered, but the sun was low enough I thought I might chance going outside to take this picture and I really wanted to.

A day or two ago I was walking down the hall when I heard, as if through the skylight above me–was that the hawk? Did I actually hear the hawk? Or was that something else? I wondered if it might be a crow: there had been a huge flock that had tried to take over the neighborhood a month ago with the last of someone’s unpicked persimmon tree attracting them, but most seemed to have moved on and they always avoided my house. Only once saw a few land in my yard and then immediately go nope nope nope out of here.

So here I was, camera in hand at about 5:00 pm, and we are going to get hundreds more plums than last year’s handful when the tree was just starting to get into this. (Planted by my kids for Mother’s Day here.)

There was that call again.

I looked up into the bay laurel tree just to my right. Whether he was calling to a mate somewhere or giving it to me straight I wasn’t sure but it was a deep, croaky sound that would carry a long way.

The Cooper’s hawk looked over its shoulder back down at me from up at the top as if to say, Prey tell? Do you mind?

And I, grateful for the chance to be actually outside in person with him for that moment but not wanting to cause him grief over it, let the photos already taken be enough.

And it’s open! And it looks like we will have flowers on all three peach trees this first year. Cool!

If you missed Monika’s comment yesterday, go see the link she offered about keeping critters out: so intuitive, so obvious, so wishing I had thought of it, so glad someone did. Just collect those clear plastic clamshells that grocery store fruit often comes in–with those airholes so rain won’t collect, the guy points out–and snap one around each piece of fruit on the tree.

I wonder if a twistie tie to thwart raccoons will be needed too, but hey. Cool. Easy!

Meantime…

Wednesday, when I encountered all those men buying roses at Costco? What I didn’t say was that I shared an atrocious pun with one of their workers and he stopped right there in his tracks and just roared with laughter. Couldn’t ask for better than that. New employee. Didn’t know him. We parted with both of us chuckling.

Friday night , with other plans for Saturday, Richard and I got a little more grocery shopping done there.

Now, at Target or at least the one here, they have an electric go-cart that they hook up all the carts in the parking lot to in a line that then pushes them all back to where they want them with no more human muscle involved than a single cart’s worth at a time. Beep beep beep flashing light flashing light. Seems like a great idea to me, and I’ve never liked that Costco, which uses bigger, heavier carts, doesn’t do that; they have their workers attach a long leash to the one at the end and then pull, pulll, pulllll a long bunny-hop of them line-dancing back to the front of the store, with extra pains for where the tarmac is uneven.

As we got out of our car, it was dark and the guy on cart duty just ahead of us had on an orange vest with yellow reflective stripes. Good thing; his face, unlike mine, would not be one to glow in the headlights.

Same guy.

He got to the safety of the overhang and out of the way of potential oncoming cars (not to mention not wanting to lose his momentum) before he turned around to see what on earth was going on.

This time he was suddenly laughing out of surprise. There was that lady again with the bad pun, the gray hair and the cane, and this time she was at the other end of those carts.

Dude. I’ve got your back.

At this stage, that little flower reminds me somewhat of a mountain laurel blossom back East, my most favorite tree flower ever and something that grew wild and lovely in our yard, growing up. Light pink edges, dark pink inner part and those stamens just so–it is achingly beautiful to me. Tropic Snow is supposed to be the most ornamental of the peach trees I planted and I put it where you can’t see it from the family room window, thinking I might regret that later, and I just might–all I knew at the time was that Dave Wilson Nursery says these are pretty.

And how.

I found a source for the mylar ribbons to scare critters away from the fruit: put it up just before things ripen, they say, take it down after. Five bucks a roll. Hey!

Only, my squirrels have never waited for my Fuji apples to ripen before they’ve stripped the tree. This may take some working out.

With my sun sensitivity and my lupus, it’s been twenty years since I’ve walked around Wegmans Nursery in Redwood City–but it was still there and still had good reviews, they still know their stuff. I had done okay with the sunblock and the hat at the funeral and it was past time the two of us had an adventure of a day, and so add in a sun-protection jacket, wait till near closing time, and off we went.

“So what are we going to get?” Richard asked on the drive up.

“Uh, I was going for that birdscare tape,” says me.

“I thought you were going to get a second blueberry plant.” (They are much more productive with a second variety next to them.)

Me, unspoken: (YES!!!)

We got there. The guy totally knew what I was talking about when I said limb spreaders, plastic thingies with v-shaped ends for keeping the youngest plum limbs from overlapping. Those will be in on Wednesday, he told us.

Richard went hunting for the stuff to protect from peach leaf curl. Organic only. He told me the variety of blueberry was totally my choice, and although the O’Neals were pretty picked over, that’s what I wanted and I found a healthy one–and a whole lot bigger than the little one-year-old plant Stark’s had changed my mail order to (without telling me) after I’d ordered a larger two-year-0ld one: I was perfectly willing to trade a very few dollars (maybe six?) for a year of waiting for berries. Lesson learned. Stay local.

What about the soil type, Richard asked the guy, who took us to where there was blueberry-specific potting soil and put a bag in our car. (Earthworm castings are particularly important for O’Neals. Man, I sound like a real gardener. I assure you, it’s still all pretend at this point.) What about staking the new peach trees, my sweetie asked me, and I had something at home already that I thought would do. The guy told me they had a product coming in that would help support the weight of the peaches while protecting them from wildlife.

Richard had another thought. Did I want some annuals to put along the front of the house?

I was amazed. He was really getting into this. Cool. (I’ll plant some seeds for that, was my thought, trying to hold today’s costs down.)

I asked the Wegmans guy whether letting the Tropic Snow grow a few peaches now would stunt the growth of the roots? I mean, I’d only just planted the thing.

No, and he told me with a grin that I’d lucked out.

Cooool.

Got home. Snapped the picture up there. Found out that the reason that big pot always wobbles when a squirrel jumps up on it is that by golly one bit of the underside was broken off–who knew. Propped it up with a broken piece from a small pot the squirrels smashed off the table, and steady as she goes.

I finished planting the O’Neal in it, ran some water over my hands with the hose, checked on the plum tree–it was dormant Tuesday, it’s totally covered in tiny growth buds now–went inside, closed the sliding glass door, turned back to see…

…And there was a little house finch perched on the new blueberry plant, the one that was happily big enough to support its doing so, watching me watching it as if thanking me for all its blueberries to come.

Maybe I should plant a cherry tree to the birds in thanks for their entertaining me.

My hands still smell of rich soil with a side of sunblock.

And I even got some knitting done too.

The first peregrine falcon egg has arrived on PG&E’s 33d floor in San Francisco, a full week earlier than last year, which was earlier than any year before it, as was the year before that, to the point of being a month earlier than it once was. Eyes on our San Jose nest, often just a few days behind.

Meantime, the neighbors did some tree trimming, and with our permission they cut back some random stuff that was leaning over from our side of the fence. The trimmers did leave one big bushy thing alone: it had a bird’s nest at the top, and it may be February but it’s nesting season now.

I’m pretty sure that’s the jays’ nest. And there have been two, and in the last week they’ve been cooperating like a pair rather than chasing each other off from the peanut offerings tossed when the squirrels aren’t looking.

Two Bewick’s wrens likewise have begun dancing lightly together across the top of the large wooden box that gives me such a good viewing platform as I scatter suet across it. The kind with chili oil in it: birds only. (And don’t rub your eyes!) I haven’t seen one wren feed the other yet, but it will be soon.

There is new light and space opened up for our fruit trees now, thank you, neighbors.

And Phyllis, I know you said it takes several years, I know it takes several years, but no one told the Tropic Snow peach that it takes several years: definitely pink there (flash notwithstanding) and definitely a flower about to open up. Probably several. When it starts to fruit I want to put a metal cage around each one, prop them up somehow and let that baby tree do what it wants to do.

They say that letting it fruit in the first year or two will stunt the growth, which I’m choosing to think of as not the roots but rather the future height of the tree. (Right?) And this is a problem?

Maybe just one peach?

Oops, Don, I think I’m in for it after all, my apologies for the germs.

At the first loud sneeze, a squirrel leaps ten feet off the porch into the air.

At the second loud sneeze, the same squirrel lopes three feet in no particular hurry. Stops.  Looks back over his shoulder at me: if I want him to go any further away than that at this point, there’s going to have to be a stale nut thrown past him, a little incentive, and I’m not going along with it. He gives the bushytail version of a shrug–he got over it quickly, so hopefully I will too.

I had a request for a picture of the beginning of the peach tree budding, so here it is, with a reminder to me that mylar strips are in its future. They have that certain snake-like charm. There will be leaping away and there will be staying away. (Right?) I intend to get the budder deal of it.

Maybe you’ve already seen the video of the two-year-old who can sink a basketball so well. The kid is as good as a mom tossing a piece of mango peel across the kitchen into the trash: never misses. Baby giggles time!

Meantime. Don has a friend with lupus he wanted to give a copy of my book to, and so I drove over this evening to drop it off and we had a great visit. I just really hope I don’t end up passing on the germs of the guy who was sitting next to me on the plane on Monday.

And while I’m doing that hoping, blogs and emails are wonderful but in-person time beats all. Thank you for the excuse and the invite, Don. And for the knitters, two words: Stitches West!

(Oh and. I checked my peach trees today. The Tropic Snow has buds definitely swelling up and starting out, the August Pride, barely but it’s starting, and the Babcock is being a little more patient. It is the most amazing thing to plunk something so inert in the dirt and watch it coming to life!)

Previously, the trowel was for playing games with the scrub jays: try to find this stale almond. You watched me walk over to the tool on top of the barbecue grill, go see what I was up to. Kinda fun to play peekaboo with them and to watch those long crow-like bills poking around under there, their  heads bent down to their toes. They’re on to me.

Yesterday I put out suet for the little birds but not the jays’ expected nuts at first, trying to avoid those few steps into the sun because it was a little later in the morning than I liked and I knew there would be more sun time in the afternoon.

Big and blue and it flew in close, staring me down from the other side of the window and then swooping out in a slalom over the grill. Playtime is serious stuff. I got the hint. Next time I looked up, the trowel was moved halfway across the top, a first. Calvinball, bird style.

This afternoon, with the sky a late shade of gray, I picked up that trowel and walked halfway across the yard and put it in front of one of the holes I’d spaded out. August Pride: that went furthest to the left (I’m recording it here, I’ll never remember later) where it will eventually block out the view of the weather vane the neighbor put on top of the fence years ago, an aged Snoopy with his arms twirling stiffly in the wind. Just peachy–or it will be.  I scooped out the hole a little more thataway with the trowel, trying to use my arms but not my back.

Then the middle one, on the other side of the bay laurel tree: the Babcock. The variety my friend Constance grew up with and raved over and that I have childhood memories of my Dad saying was a great one among the white types. Again, in a great spot. I was very pleased.

Then going further down the raised bed and to the right of the lemon tree, the Tropic Snow.  The one that’s supposed to be so ornamental as well as (like the others) among the best in taste tests, but there was just no room to put it where it would be the first thing to see looking up from my window by the computer, at the other end of the bed. It had to go at this end. I’m not so pleased with the spot also because we have some major trimming of a weed tree to do to get optimal sun there, which hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t till spring at the earliest. Putting the peach there now might–might–even make it a little longer of a job for the trimmers to do.

Although. The worst thing that could happen is that they drop a limb and snap the whole sapling off, in which case I’d be back to square one and no time lost than if I hadn’t tried at all; so much better to have a head start and take my chances.

I think it’ll do.

It wasn’t quite five o’clock and, overcast or no, I should really have gone inside at that point. But I didn’t quite right away. I walked up and down, taking it in, admiring the growth and the health of these baby trees bursting with inner life, still green at their new-this-year shoots. They are going to thrive, they are going to bless my family, they are going to give us the best peaches ever, they are going to survive my grandchildren climbing them someday and waving at the neighbors with the you’re-so-vane Snoopy.

To life!

Did you see the multi-color igloo made from water-refilled milk bottles left out to freeze in the cold? Great fun. All that food coloring is going to make for some great Easter grass in the spring. Ironic that the guy’s name is Gray.

Meantime, a box arrived today with its label on upside down. The UPS guy carefully set it this end up, leaning against the window, up-rooted inside, rang the doorbell and was nearly to his truck when I got to the door and saw what it was. “THANK you!”

He turned, surprised, and waved. (New guy on the route.)

I waited and waited for the sun to get lower so I could go out there. I pushed it a little more than I should have, but I so wanted to go see if I could do this. By myself.

Three holes got dug in the good soil of the raised bed left behind by the long-ago previous owners, better gardeners than I. With apologies to the neighbors who were hoping to have branches on their sides of the fence–these were better spots. I didn’t put the peach trees in quite yet because I wanted to give Richard a chance to go over placement if he wanted.

It wasn’t till later that I moved just slightly so and my back suddenly gave me what-for for all that spading. Oh, now you’re complaining?

And I don’t care. I iced it. I get to grow my own peaches forever after, Tropic Snow for June, Babcock for July, August Pride to finish off the summer with. How cool is that?! What on, well, earth did I wait so many years for?

Their online photo did it for me. And so on my way home from Los Gatos Birdwatcher today, I stopped by Yamagami’s: there was a high greenhouse roof covering most of the place and so it seemed I could risk it. I noted that you have to walk through their building to get to the rest, straight from the car right at the front door. Promising.

Walking through the building, then the towering greenhouse, I did actually have to step outside a few steps to see the Loring and Indian Free (Thomas Jefferson grew those) peach trees on display–there, side by side, exactly what I’d hoped to find.

Only, the price tags were over three times what I’d expected and  I was quietly agog. Not only that, the Loring looked definitely unwell.

Blink.

Got home and went straight to the computer and looked it up–oh of course, it’s the special-order bareroot trees that are the price I saw on their order form, not the ones they’d tended in pots in a high-rent part of the state. Still. You needed that sale to get the ones in stock under $100 each if you had to have them right this very minute.

But here was a nursery I could feel good about ordering through because I could actually go there to pick them up. Carefully. For someone with such extreme sun sensitivity as I have with my lupus, I cannot begin to tell you how exhilarating and how freeing that felt.

My sister Marian was telling me about a fruit tree of hers that too often gets hit with a cold snap after it blooms, wrecking that year’s crop. For people with that problem, you want a tree that requires a lot of chill hours so the tree won’t break dormancy too early. There’s a list of varieties and descriptions here (not just of peaches).

For the locals: Yamagami is having a sale the 20th to the 30th on fruit trees, not just the ones in stock but the special-order ones, too, 40% off, with another 10% off with a coupon for their newsletter subscribers. Itlooks like my Loring peach is going to cost all of $20 and a bit of work and hope. I’m debating adding an Arctic Supreme to extend the peach-picking season–and frankly because the taste testers rated it so high, too. Might have to keep one of the two in a pot because of where the sun is best vs where the foundation of the house is, but hey. Totally doable.

Why didn’t I do this a long time ago?

Heard elsewhere:

Sarah Palin called Senator Joe Lieberman’s office.

“I’m sorry, he’s not here, it’s Rosh Hoshanah.”

“Hey, Rosh, could you take a message for me?”

———-

Edited hours later to add the real post. You know how some days are all about winding yarn while your brain sifts through what project and idea to pursue next? Only, I’ve been doing that with fruit trees, winding my way through websites, learning everything I can while trying to decide what makes the most sense for our small lot. Avocado trees are poisonous to birds? Forget that. Wait–we get 880 chill hours? We do? (The number of hours of cold a tree needs in the winter in order to produce a good crop come spring.) That’s a lot more than I thought and gives me a lot more options.

Note that if you plant close to a light-colored house it will reflect warmth onto the tree and up the hours needed.

Wait–Lorings? 750 hours–Yamagami nursery in Cupertino has Lorings?! (Down the right side there.) Lorings are the peach trees of my childhood!

There was a commercial orchard just barely into West Virginia that grew them.

The farm hands would come through and pick everything ripe or that might ripen, leaving only the tiniest and greenest that could never sell like that. The trees would then put their all into those very few, and over a few weeks they would become huge–a pound, a pound and a half, drip-through-your-fingers juicy and with a flavor like no other. But getting to them was so much work that to the farmer it wasn’t worth hiring help again for.

Mom and Dad would call, and when the peaches were ready for gleaning we would go. It was a long haul from the DC suburbs but also one of the adventures of our childhoods.  Putting ladders here and here and here with Mom and Dad, we six kids got to climb up in the trees after those scattered few, so perfect peaches left behind, while getting an incredibly good per-pound price for our prizes; for the farmer, it was found money.

And also found friends. He loved that we so much loved what he did–and that we got to see his peaches not the way they ship best but fully how they’re supposed to be.

Meeting new neighbors down the street once with some of those incredible peaches the day we’d picked them answered their wondering as to whether anyone would notice or care that they’d moved in. Wow, *where* did you get these?!

It took us, what, Marian, an hour and a half? Hour three quarters each way to get there? But it was always worth it.

I can grow Lorings here in California! Who knew!

I went outside near dusk to set the hose going on the plum and apple trees–it does not rain in summer in California–and came back in. After letting it run about a half hour, I went back out there and, the hose being shortish, simply held it awhile to let it spray over thataway a bit too.

A male Anna’s hummingbird came darting in among the plum leaves near my face, making eye contact. No flowers here, hon, I thought at it.  But that didn’t seem to be what it was looking for:  it zoomed over to the arc of falling droplets, zipping through them over and over. An aerial birdbath!

I’ve been trying to remember to get out there and do that once a week. I just found my incentive. Hose-Anna!

As the Eagles sang, Thought by now, we’d realize, there ain’t no way to Hyde yer Ryan, aye.

Ie, the kid can’t get off work and he’s not going to his cousin’s wedding with us.

Tomatoes. Water. Yes. He can manage that for me. (Gee, Alison, ya think?)

Yarn, yarn, decisions, decisions. Patterns? Needles?

(Ed. to add, I typed that, looked around, dithered, did my treadmill time, and finally said a prayer: who? With what? And suddenly I knew, absolutely, I knew. It’s all packed now and ready for me to get to it.)

So. I have these indoor tomato plants and they’re soaking up water two, even three times a day, all going into those rapidly growing wonderfully squirrel-free future BLTs. (Well, maybe something healthier than lettuce. Maybe avocado.)

What would you do to keep them hydrated if you were afraid of missing a moment when they needed it? If they dry, they die. If I were to put a pot in a bowl of water, the roots would drown.

And so, I found this; page two says a ripped piece of t-shirt going all the way down into a water jug and tucked three inches into the soil will keep them safe. Wouldn’t that make for a lovely decor: rags to the riches of a ripe homegrown tomato. Maybe I should plant some greens to go with to complete that sandwich idea.

Actually, just yesterday I was looking for a reason to keep or toss a few old Ts.

Well then. Should my plants be rednecked? Or blue collards? I guess whatever suits.