Divide, Divide…or Be Conquered…

“You better divide that!”Nancy L, my environmentally-sensitive friend told me as she waggled her forefinger at my rhubarb plant. Her advice came across more as an order than a recommendation. I suppose her tone of command stemmed from the fact she had given me the same advice last year and I had shrugged it off. According to Nancy L, when a rhubarb plant sprouts flower spikes and blooms, it’s time to separate it.

I  guess I should have been a better custodian of my rhubarb because it’s Nancy L I have to thank for that humongous clump of root and foliage she’s pointing at. A half dozen years ago I applied some “hot” compost to my rhubarb and fried the invincible mound of stalks and leaves (A Rhubarb over Rhubarb, 7/1/2010). In two weeks the leaves turned pink, then red, and finally melted away altogether, leaving a hole in the ground that resembled the Roswell Crater…on a lesser scale, of course. I stood on the lip of the crater that used to be my rhubarb, stared at the void in disbelief and thought: “No summer pies, either rhubarb or strawberry-rhubarb, no rhubarb sauce with ice cream, no rhubarb-strawberry preserves…no flavorful astringent rhubarb stalks to pucker my mouth on a hot summer day. “I’ll bring you a start from my plant,”Nancy L assured me. She did and after I shoveled out the old grave and refilled it with fresh, new “cool” compost, I planted Nancy L’s gift…yes, the very one she’s waving her finger at now. “So you think it’s about time to divide that thing?”I tease. Nancy L gave me an “I told you so” scowl and as she walked away, exclaimed,  “You’ll need an ax!”

An ax?  Did I hear her say “an ax?” Certainly Nancy L wasn’t serious.  I planned a bit of simple division, that’s all, not an execution and headed to the garage for the shovel. I returned to the base of operations and dug an eighteen inch deep moat around the root until it perched there like a miniature medieval castle with knobby rhizomes for turrets, the newly unfurling leaves bobbing like flags, and went to the house for lunch.

Years ago I had the idea our place needed some horseradish, so I picked up a starter root at a local nursery and planted it next to our well standpipe. In just two years that single root grew into a patch of thick green leaves, each with roots of  its own. Thinking a good thrashing would kill the thing, I ran the tiller through the patch. Big mistake there: each chopped chunk became a new plant, multiplied like  the severed rays of a starfish, and by that fall I had enough product to supply horseradish for every prime rib roast in the Valley. Next spring I took a shovel to the patch, dug out all the small roots and bagged them for the trash. The taproot, however, was a monstrous thing, like a gigantic dandelion root. Three feet down I dug and still the root was a full inch in diameter. I chased after it for another couple of feet but could see the root of the problem was well on its way to China. I gave in, hoping the earth would swallow it up. (If you are a fan of horseradish, and purchase a jar of spread, for the sake of curiosity you might check the label to see if its contents were “packaged in China.”) At this point, here’s a gardening tip: if you’d like to have fresh horseradish from your backyard garden, I suggest you corral the root with a good, strong container. Better yet: the best container to use is one full of creamed horseradish from your local grocery. So it’s horseradish baggage I pack with me as I head back out to lay siege to “Castle Perilous,” that ominous mound of rhubarb root.

Seasoned rhubarb wrestlers advise you to take the new divisions from the edges of the root and discard the woodier center. As rhubarb division was unfamiliar territory for me, I decide to take their advice and chip away at the perimeter. The aggregate looked pretty much the same, so tentatively I direct the shovel at a peripheral sprouting clump. To my surprise, the rhubarb deflects the blade, repels it, and the shovel glances off the woody surface as if it had struck a boulder. I redirect my angle of attack from another quarter, but each time the results are the same… the shovel ricochets off the root. I’m sure I’m imagining things but after several futile attempts, I thought I heard the clump laugh; at this point I’m the object  of rhubarb ridicule. “An ax,” I thought…”didn’t someone mention an ax?” I set the shovel aside and headed for the woodshed.

With ax in hand I decide to use the“tough love” approach on that stubborn chunk of tuber. The clump I chop my way through is about two feet across and nearly that deep in the soil. Disregarding individual nodes and clefts, I slice off slab after slab, separating what look to be healthy replants and pile them on the lip of the trench. Further ax work shaves off the woody pulp which I also heap around the hole. Two hours later I have the wheelbarrow heaped with chunks of rhubarb and now the additional  problem of how to dispose of them. “FREE” always seems to work, and I consider wheeling the load to the right-of-way and setting a “FREE rhubarb” sign next to it (worked fine when I last divided my iris).

Looking back on the experience, I recall tree stumps that were easier to extract. After the pit was “sanitized,” I filled it half full of compost, shoveled in some garden soil, and replanted the spot with a new plant. Then either in a moment of muddled thought or overwhelmed by excess rhubarb, I planted five more plants. Yes, now I have six plants… and two or three years down the road six times more work ahead. But I have a sharp ax… a chainsaw…and I could always rent a stump grinder.

 

(Note: my wheelbarrow is empty.The next day I visited the Valley where I found Paul Bischoff tending his vegetable farm. “Need some rhubarb?” I asked hopefully. Paul did indeed. That afternoon he relieved me of the excess, and now they’re his problem.)

Peeping Frog…

We had a peeping Tom out back several years ago. When you move to the country onto one slim acre, you don’t think much about being peeped at. Isn’t that the sort of thing that happens mainly in town where the houses crowd together and those of the peeping persuasion have a good deal more subject matter to peep at? We assumed what little peeping that might occur from outside in the dark would be done by four-legged critters on their nocturnal rounds and happened to cast a random glance or two at the lighted household as they loped or sidled by.

Our peeper was a spring peeper and his peeping might have continued undetected had I not discovered a “trail” of evidence in the freshly tilled garden the next day. I had gone out that morning to check the garden’s progress when I noticed footprints in the newly turned earth. The shoe prints were accompanied by dog tracks (a clue that narrowed the suspects considerably). I backtracked the trail to the edge of the property until I lost it in the grass. Whoever it was had come from the west…and now I was sure I knew who owned the shoes that made those imprints. As if this weren’t disturbing enough, the ground where the night watcher had stood was compacted; he had been there long enough for his shifting stance to pack the soil. A small mound of what I first thought were coffee grounds turned out to be expectorated  “chew”; whoever the peeper, he was leisurely enjoying some nicotine stimulation while watching our movements inside the house. When I stood on the packed ground that morning and faced the house to see how much a peeper could see from this prospect, I shuddered: the plate glass windows, the dining room glass sliding door and kitchen window were in full view; in the dark anything and anyone illuminated from within would be clearly visible.

Being spied upon raises an interesting question: which is creepier, catching a peeper in the act and running him off? Or discovering the next day that you and your movements were being clandestinely ogled, leaving you to wonder just what activities you were performing for your audience and how long you had been entertaining him. Knowing someone was out there in the darkness of a country night, standing a scant fifty feet away, watching your every movement as you went about your evening routine, seemed plenty creepy to us. We were careful to pull the shades at dusk from that time on. I’m certain I knew who “Tom” was but couldn’t prove it and for this reason did not call the authorities. Things have a way of resolving themselves, this time in the form of a falling out between the man and his landlord. The evicted Mr. Peeper left the Valley to spy on others elsewhere and took his best friend with him.

Brekekekex koax koax!..is a fairly true rendering of the racket that disturbed my reading one afternoon last fall. The rasping sound was so clear and close I first thought it might be coming from inside the house. I crept to the rear deck sliding door, but before I could ease the slider open, the noise abruptly stopped. After I stood motionless for a moment or two, the creaky brekekekex koax koax resumed. The sound was so close it seemed to be coming from beneath my feet and I nearly jumped back in fright. A check of the doorjamb and the backsides of a couple indoor plants failed to locate the noisemaker. Whenever I would move, the noise would cease, but as soon as I paused a few seconds, the hoarse refrain resumed. This seems an appropriate time to attribute the source for my phonetic rendering of the sound to classical Greek comedy: Aristophanes’ play Frogs in which frogs play the part of the chorus. What I have included here is the English translation of the frog actors’ repetitive refrain, and although I’m not sure of the original Greek, the noise I heard that afternoon could have been one of the cast rehearsing for the role. Of course I recognized the sound as soon as I heard it, but it was the proximity of the creature that startled me. Although I searched the immediate area thoroughly, I never did locate the little croaker.

From time to time throughout the fall the little chorister would break into song from somewhere on the deck—never from quite the same place—but always from the deck. For that reason, in a flash of brilliant inspiration, my wife named the little fellow “Deckster.” And thus it was Deckster became a part of the fabric of fall.

The Pacific Chorus frog, an apt name for Deckster and his kin, happens to be our official Washington State frog. Most are small enough to squat on a two-bit piece (one I discovered on an okra leaf could have perched upon a Jefferson nickel and still not smothered our third president). We seem to have an abundance of chorus frogs here on the place and it’s always a delight to discover one. I’ve relocated several to the hedge borders whenever they’re threatened by the tiller or mower.They spring out of the grass, leaves or weeds, and I have to stop the machinery to rescue them. I suspect the little amphibians are capable of protective coloration and like chameleons have camouflage capability.

The little fellows show up in the most unlikely places. You’ll be out and about the place doing this and that, and all of a sudden you’ll see something out of place, take a second look—what’s wrong with this picture—and you’ll be face to face with a Pacific Chorus frog. He may be green; he may be brown; he may be mottled; but he’s always a surprise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall gave way to winter, and Deckster’s brekekekek koax koax went on hiatus (or dormant). A few weeks ago, prompted by the entire cast of frogs chorusing from Old Barn Pond across the road, Deckster began his spring rehearsals. I used to think he and his relatives were “rain frogs”; their brekekeking presaged impending rain (like singing in the showers), but in our drippy Valley, I hold little store in amphibian prognostication: Deckster would sound off whenever he brimmed with song.

The other night I was typing away on the computer when all of a sudden I felt I was being watched, spied upon, peeped at. I glanced over my shoulder at the sliding door and saw the belly of a frog glued against the glass like a decal. Deckster had clambered halfway up the glass and stuck there to get a better view of the household activities. I don’t know how long he’d been watching; I don’t know what he saw from his vantage point; and I don’t much care. There’s nothing goes on this household I’d be afraid to put on display for a frog.

Oh, Where, Oh, Where Has that Little Stand Gone…

Oh, where, oh, where can it be? The Valley is going to have a harder time waking up these days. Last Saturday I headed for town and lo and behold, there at the intersection of Tualco and 203, the corner was bare. The little business known as Island Blends was gone, disappeared, vanished. The trade winds must have spirited it away to parts unknown…the Bermuda Triangle, perhaps. Nothing remains but a drain pipe or two, some footings, a faded sign and a bewildered little palm tree, suddenly orphaned, left to fend for itself among the ghosts of Carolyn Peters’ corner menagerie. The little stand has disappeared faster than you can order: “A tall, white chocolate mocha, non-fat, extra hot,  no whip…Please!”

The Ripple has its investigative staff working around the clock gathering the particulars, but as of this posting, where the little blue stand went, when, and most puzzling of all, why, remain shrouded in mystery. We all know what happened to Ms. Peters’ little egg/flower stand: a green Honda Civic took it out a few years back, sliced the walls right out from under the roof. A wrecking ball couldn’t have done a more efficient job. Who was behind the wheel of that little, green machete is yet a mystery, too. What happened to the stand, though, was obvious.

Responding to a query from The Ripple’s research department, landlord Matt Beebe in an email reply shared little more than what the The Ripple already knew: the stand was gone. Yes, the vacant corner had pretty much confirmed that fact. Matt was already moving on with plans for the future, hoping to keep the Valley’s caffeine drought as brief as possible. The Ripple invokes journalistic privilege and shares Beebe’s business model for Island Blends’ replacement. His intent “is to provide local community commuters with a drive-up coffee stand next to a walk-in farmstand on the best corner site for access parking this side of Monroe in the farmland. I want to see more picnic tables and umbrellas,” Matt continued, “for people to sit down awhile and enjoy the afternoon there in the summer with their families with fresh fruit from the farmstand and cold drinks from the coffeestand as there are not too many places left anymore in the farmland areas for people to go and enjoy the local farm products.” (Oh, and by the way, the stand will be “family friendly”; bikini baristas need not apply…runs up the utility bill, for one thing.) And while The Ripple is still puzzled as to the why of the “just up and left” Island Blends stand, the business model Mr. Beebe put forward seems sound enough. However, Gladys and I  might suggest that on a hot summer’s day a good hotdog loaded with everything (yes, that includes sauerkraut) would complement that cool, refreshing drink.

I suppose I should have been a better Island Blends patron. I could count on ten fingers the number of coffees I purchased during the brief time Mike ran the business and probably have a couple digits to spare. I for one will miss the little blue hut. Island Blends added a bit of “funkiness” to the corner if one can apply such a term to its Hawaiian theme. My nickname  for the proprietor was “The Ukulele Man,” as I frequently found him strumming away on that instrument between customers as if he were Don Ho. I’ll miss his colorful Hawaiian shirts and shell necklaces—as close to the “Islands” as our Valley will ever get (excepting flood season). What most impressed me about Mike was his creative marketing and entrepreneurship. I once told my wife that if it would stand still long enough, Mike could sell it. In addition to his featured beverages he peddled everything from sea salt to honey to pepper spray. When Gladys and I passed by, we would frequently see him puttering here and there about the place making improvements, adding gutters, a coat of paint complete with a gentle surf lapping at the foundations. Mike’s little mustard-yellow hotdog cart was an extension of his personality, I always thought. (I must confess I couldn’t count on both hands the hotdogs, loaded up with the works, I purchased those sunny weekends when Mike rolled out his little“sunshine”cart.) When our old refrigerator passed away, he offered to loan us one of his small units until we were back in business, and when our brand new replacement malfunctioned, Mike kept us supplied with bags of ice while we waited for a technician to get the thing running again.

News keeps breaking as I’m writing this post. I contacted a longtime customer of Island Blends and he said he purchased his morning coffee on the way to work last Friday and when he returned that evening the stand was gone. “Mike never said a thing about it when he served my drink,” he exclaimed. “The stand is gone and I bought a pre-paid card, too!” (Rumor has it the stand has washed aground [ no pun intended] behind one of the buildings at the Creasy Log Homes site. Thus the mystery deepens and The Ripple is following the story closely….)

In the dark Valley mornings I’ll miss the stand’s cheery little neon sign flashing “OPEN,” announcing that the coffee is hot, inviting Valley coffee lovers to drive on in and be served. In the meantime as far as Island Blends little business is concerned, the Valley wishes it a  fond farewell and “Aloha…” for the time being, at least.

A Rite of Spring in the Valley: From the Archives…

Hardly a week and a half ago I posted about the fickle month of March, the changeable weather: sunbreaks one day, snow the next. Since that posting the March lion has retreated to his den and in his stead lamb-like spring has moved into the Valley. Our nesting pair of tree swallows came gliding in March twenty-fifth, checking  out their familiar summer accommodations. Three days later I was tilling in the garden and glanced up to see a flight of four buzzards wheeling against a backdrop of blue. The old saying has it that one swallow does not make a spring and perhaps it’s up to the blossoming lilacs to seal the deal, but in all the years I’ve been visiting the Valley I saw a sign of spring I’ve never seen here before.

“You throw like a girl!” I shout as Gladys and I wheel by the little house with the green metal roof, the one that’s a twin of Tony Broers’ old homestead. Two men, an older and a younger—father and son, perhaps—on this cloudless day are playing catch in the yard, tossing a softball back and forth. “That’s what I keep telling him,” the younger catcher laughs as he drops the ball. I felt like chiding him with: “You catch like a girl, too!” But I didn’t. Such sentiments are shared only among men, of course: if you’ve ever seen the Husky girls’ fast pitch softball team in action, “You throw like a girl” would not be a taunt but be a supreme compliment.

Baseball…the American Pastime, or so they say. Baseball…it used to be a passion in our household. T-ball, Boys’ and Girls’ Club league, Girl’s fast pitch Little League, Middle School Varsity, High School J.V., with a fast pitch clinic mixed in there somewhere. There were baseball card collections, season tickets to the Everett Aqua-Sox,  evening Mariners game on the radio.

What’s not to like about baseball? It’s a simple game: you throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball, but baseball is also a game of strategy, a Rubik’s Cube of variables, a chess match on a diamond playing field. In baseball three simple things can happen: you can win; you can lose; or it can rain. It is a sport where all comers can play, regardless of skill level. You don’t have to be a seven footer to participate; you don’t have be an incredible hulk programmed to bulldoze another player. The best whoever played the game failed to hit the ball two-thirds of the time. Baseball is a sport where a game’s outcome may hang on a single pitch, a single swing of the bat, a single error. After each pitch it’s “a whole new ballgame”: the strategy changes with the pitch count, with each new batter (or pitcher), with each runner who reaches base and with each base he’s reached. In theory a baseball hit between the foul lines could sail on forever fair; and a game could last forever (the longest game? Thirty-three innings between the Triple A Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, April 18-19, 1981. Sox win 3-2). The game invites interactivity: a fan who scores a game has a pitch by pitch account of the contest, becomes a statistician while at the same time keeping a watchful eye on any foul balls that may sail his way. And the best thing about baseball? It ushers in spring and the lazy days of summer.

The best sports literature by far, fiction and non, is baseball literature. This is not editorial opinion; it’s a fact. And the best sports literary characters, fiction and non are baseball characters. Some of the best writing, journalistic and “creative” concerns the subject of baseball. Just one example: in The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway’s old Cuban fisherman Santiago is following the “Great DiMaggio’s” baseball season (longest hitting streak, 56 games, 1941; the record still stands). Canadian author W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe which translated into the quintessential baseball movie The Field of Dreams (1989) inspired our family to take a baseball pilgrimage of a thousand miles to a cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa, a cornfield that miraculously sprouted a baseball diamond replete with field lights. Don Lansing’s farm became a  movie set and there, surrounded by cornfields with knee high corn, we performed the rituals of the game: played catch, shagged flies, ran the bases… the daughter disappeared into the corn rows (thanks to the fade function on the video cam)….

Early the next day we returned to the field for“extra innings.” The evening before we had met owner Lansing,  had him autograph a baseball (purchased at a Wal-Mart in Miles City, Montana), and bought a few souvenirs at his little stand. Don told us he had to hide the bases before dark so they wouldn’t be taken as souvenirs (signs directing sightseers to the field kept disappearing, too, had to be replaced constantly). He showed us where he kept the bases hidden until the next day and said we were welcome to put them out if we were the first visitors the next morning. We were…and we did. For our family the Field of Dreams was a shrine of sorts and we left Dyersville with a renewed faith in “The Church of Baseball.”

Things change; life moves on; old passions wane, and new ones take their place. While the game itself remained—and still does—a constant, baseball’s appeal, at least for me, deteriorated. The game became all about money, and greed tainted the sport; players trolled both leagues for the highest salaries. Each season a fan had to build a new loyalty base to an unfamiliar team roster, acquaint himself with players who were complete strangers. The sport became more about landing an inflated contract than executing a perfect double play. Salary competition in the off season was keener than on the field of play. The players’ quest for huge salaries led to the 1994-‘95 strike which shorted the season by eighty-six games, leaving us ardent fans bereft of playoffs and the 1994 World Series. Then came the issue of “chemically encouraged” players and players who adamantly disavowed such encouragement. Time-honored records in the sport were shattered and the public’s trust along with them. All this and then the daughter’s moving away and starting a life of her own led to my estrangement from baseball.

In those days during baseball season the daughter and I had a pre-supper ritual. We’d grab our ball gloves and a softball and head for the front yard. After several warm up throws we would pace off sixty feet or so between us. “Ready?” I’d ask. She’d nod and I would begin the silent count: twenty throws back and forth without a “passed ball.” Twenty consecutive catches for each of us. Just a simple catch, it would seem, but time and again one of us would drop the ball, throw wide, sending one or the other into foul territory to retrieve it. Countless times during those evening catches I’d reach a seventeen, eighteen, nineteen count even and then the ball, as if it had a mind of its own, would sail beyond one of our gloves and the count had to be reset. Two, sometimes three times we were warned: “Your dinner’s getting cold!”  But we never left the yard until at last I yelled, “Twenty!” Then tired but exhilarated, we’d slip off our gloves and head inside to dinner. When I think back on those front yard catches I’m reminded of the poet Donald Hall’s book Fathers Playing Catch with Sons,  how just throwing a baseball around can strengthen the bonds between parent and child and etch those special moments into the memory of each .  

In the movie The Field of Dreams, after that magical cornfield  conjures up his father (“If you build it, he will come”), Ray Kinsella asks him, “Dad, would you like to have a catch?”  His father turns to his son and a smile plays across his face as he replies, “I’d like that.” At that moment—perhaps it only came from me— in that dark theatre, I thought I heard a communal sob issue from the men in the audience. I do know my vision suddenly blurred and I couldn’t read the credits. As the audience filed out silently, we men avoided making eye contact with each other and not a one turned to another and said, “You cry like a girl.”

Beethoven and Compost…

When it’s time to sleep, thoughts disturb your peace of mind and prevent you from unraveling the cares of the day. You wake up in the night and your mind goes into hyper-drive. You try to sleep. You employ your “sleep techniques," whether they be reciting the poems you memorized in the eighth grade or, as I do, inventorying the items in Scout and Jem Finch’s cigar box. These irritants are usually minor but they seem to multiply and fester, become a “to do” list, and while there’s not much you can do in the middle of the night but fret, that’s what you do, wiling away those valuable hours of sleep and rest you need to address what can’t be done until daylight.

I had a night like that recently. That day I had cleaned the asparagus bed, raked off the leaf mulch and last year’s compost, cleared it off  down to the bare soil. To my surprise I discovered some asparagus spears had already sprouted. Much too early for that, I thought. I need to top off the raised bed with new compost and protect those tender spears from the frosty nights common this time of year. After sorting through that cigar box several times, I finally drifted off.

I back the truck into one of the bays at the Werkhovens’ digester. Earlier in the week I had emailed Jim asking him if I could load some “by-product” for my asparagus bed. “Help yourself,” Jim replied, and here I was on the working end of a pitchfork helping myself to a mountain of compost. What I forked into the truck bed looked to be premium stuff: nice, loose, cooked fiber that would amend the garden soil and the asparagus bed with nitrogen while at the same time controlling the weeds. The last couple of years the “by-product” rolled out of the drying drums in fiber balls, many of which didn’t seem to decompose in the garden. Not so with this load; each forkful broke and spilled easily in the bed of the truck. I forked the bed full and headed back to the garden to unload.

During the day, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I listen to the radio. When I’m running errands, the truck radio keeps me company; working around the place, you’ll usually see this old farmer wearing a headset which serves a dual purpose: entertainment and inner ear protection when operating power equipment. Usually by noon—oftentimes before—I have heard as much news and radio blather as I can stomach. Up the dial I go to a station that features news and commercial-free classical music. This is the station I’m tuned to as I begin to spread the compost on the garden. The radio host introduces the next piece—Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. As the familiar stirring  first four notes issue from the radio, I pause, pitchfork in hand, smoking compost swirling around my barn boots, and think as I stand here wearing my tattered jeans and work shirt, how out of context this tableaux must appear. First of all, as the pianist plays those ponderous four notes, I see Winston Churchill flashing the “V” sign with his fore and index fingers. Churchill with his greatcoat and bowler hat; Churchill with his cigar, watch chain looped across his vest; the Prime Minister, bulldog joweled, his brow wrinkled in a scowl that could divert a V-2 rocket. I think of the three-quarter notes followed by the longer half note, the same duration as the Morse Code equivalent of the letter “V” which became the digital symbol for victory during WWII. The venue for Beethoven would be a symphony hall filled with full orchestra under the direction of a tuxedoed gentleman waving a stick in their faces, both performing for a full house of  concert goers wearing suits and ties, gowns and corsages. But here I am: stooping and scooping compost from the bed of the truck while “dit-dit-dit- dah” blares from the radio.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, music conjures up memories, recollections of past experiences, places and acquaintances of days gone by. Beethoven…and memory’s fancy transports me to a movie theatre where Stanley Kubrick’s film classic “A Clockwork Orange” is playing. A sociopathic youth named Alex, leader of a gang of young thugs bent on rapine and violence,  is drugged and strapped to a chair, his eyelids propped open while one violent movie after another spools before his eyes. Alex has been apprehended and justice will be served by subjecting him to aversion therapy through which he’ll be cured of his antisocial behavior and reformed. Part of Alex’s cure will be the drugs he’s forced to take which will make him nauseated whenever he sees scenes of violence. As one violent scene after another flashes before him, Alex, a lover of classical music, realizes the images he’s watching are accompanied by the music of his favorite composer, “Ludwig Van.” The composition he hears? Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Not only will Alex become violently sick whenever he views or participates in acts of violence, but also when he hears Beethoven’s music.

As the refrains of Beethoven’s 5th issue from the radio, I think about my morning caffeine. I think about the compost I’m standing in. I think about my labor of loading it into the truck, unloading and spreading it in the backyard garden. And I think about Beethoven and aversion therapy. Then comes the silly thought: “What would happen if I became physically ill whenever I tried to shovel compost?”A very good thing for me, but the garden would not take it so kindly.

When the Lion and the Lamb Converge…

The swallows returned to the Valley on March 15, the Ides. Two days later the first Rufous hummingbird made its 2013 debut at our window feeder. The Rufous is our summer hummer and now the year-round Annas will have to compete with the more aggressive, territorial Rufous until its fall migration leaves the Annas sole proprietors of the syrup. Spring creepers—tree frogs—are again conducting their evening concerts at “Old Barn Pond” across the road: nocturnal frog lullabies; morning wake up calls courtesy of chirruping robins. And March 2oth promptly at 4: 02 a.m. PDT, the vernal equinox began its processional. Ahhhhh! Spring at last!

This morning I switched on the coffee pot and raised the kitchen shade to inspect the day. I looked out through a scree of snowflakes at a world of white: the lawn, garden, hedges—the roofs of Valley houses blanketed by snow. The white stuff has pretty much left us alone this “past”season. I can’t recall any accumulation here in the Valley this winter—certainly not enough to roll up a slushy snowman anyway. Snow the third week of March? What’s up with that!

It’s location, location, location. That’s what’s up with that. The Valley lies in the crosshairs of what the local weather gurus call a“convergent zone.” The Ripple reports the Valley weather from time to time, grouses about it  just as often (Mark Twain said: “Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”) but because of its limited budget, there’s no meteorologist on staff. As a Valley resident always “under its weather,” I’ll do my best as a layman journalist to explain this so-called “convergent zone.” Unsettled weather systems target the Valley from the west, sidestep the Olympics’ rain shadow, tag team up with the weather gods from the north, then are sucked into the vortex of the Cascades, leaving the Valley at the mercy of inclemency. There, I’ve explained the entire phenomenon without a single mention of isobars, isotherms or millibars.

(Whenever the wind blows the Valley trees sideways and the house shudders; whenever hail pellets ricochet off the roof or sleet pelts the windows; whenever raindrops drum the shingles mercilessly; whenever thunder and lightning rumble through the Valley like a marching band; or whenever while we’re driving out and about, the wipers can’t keep up with the rain sheeting off the windshield, the wife and I look at each other, shake our heads knowingly, and in the same breath say, “convergent zone!”)

“March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb,” the old saying declares. That might be so, but today is March 22nd, a snow day, and I say the lion still reigns…the lamb has yet to appear.

Take a Little Off the Top…If You Can Reach It…

This time of the year as I visit the Valley, I can’t help but notice the various stages of dishevelment the Valley’s fruit trees present. The dormant, defoliated apple trees display themselves as an unruly bunch of customers. Some have become an entire forest unto themselves, a dense confusion of twigs and branches. When Jonathan Chapman cast his apple pips about the countryside, I wonder if he gave any thought to the management of his efforts once they sprouted.

I was raised on an apple orchard and participated in just about every facet of apple horticulture that comes to mind. The annual pruning of the orchard was an important routine; every tree in the entire acreage received a yearly haircut. In those days the orchard amounted to nearly 300 acres and not a single tree was neglected; each received its designated winter trimming. In mid-November the pruning crews converged on the rows of trees, and for the next three or four months we cut and trimmed for five and a half days a week.

My first recollection of pruning concerns the old standard red delicious variety of apple. These trees were huge, much like the specimens in our Valley. My very first victim was a day’s project. I climbed up into its branches in the morning, came down for lunch, and clambered up into its limbs again in the afternoon. If memory serves, pruning that first tree took me nearly the entire day. Thank goodness those old apple patriarchs were the last of their race.

For some strange reason I’ve had in mind to try my hand at pickling crabapples, so the other day I planted a bare root crabapple tree out back. After I dug the hole and added a couple shovelfuls of compost, I positioned the tree so the bud union cleared ground level by a good two inches and watered it in with a gallon of water/fish fertilizer solution. As I puttered and fussed over this lone little sapling, I thought about how shaping and pruning a fruit tree begins the moment it’s planted.

There are several reasons to employ a regular pruning regimen with your fruit trees, not the least of which is to prove who is to be master—man or the tree. For one, pruning promotes better fruit quality and quantity: opening up the center of the tree allows greater exposure to sunlight, coloring and ripening the fruit evenly; annual pruning  also leads to a consistent crop year after year instead of a bumper crop one year, a barren tree the next.  Secondly, pruning a tree helps shape it, insuring greater ease of pruning from one year to the next. Pruning also keeps the height manageable, prevents the tree from climbing into the heavens like Jack’s beanstalk. On the opposite end of the tree, proper pruning keeps the branches high enough from the ground so they won’t slap your hat from your head when you mow beneath it.

The height issue I addressed when I selected my “Calloway Crab M-7.” The “M-7” designation means my tree has been grafted onto a semi-dwarf rootstock which when pruning time rolls around means I won’t have to rent a bucket lift to prune the topmost branches. Dwarf fruit trees, depending on pruning styles, vary in height from 6-10 feet; semi-dwarves from 16 to 20. According to One Green World, from which I purchased my tree, the Calloway will be in the 6’ to 10’ range. Fine with me: a twenty foot crabapple would most certainly exhaust my pickling powers. For better maintenance and containment, I recommend the prospective backyard orchardist select dwarf rootstock whenever possible.

FYI: pruning of fruit trees begins at planting time. Once my Calloway Crabapple was firmly seated in the ground, I made my first pruning cut by snipping eight inches from the tip of the tree. Lopping off the terminal tip of the new sapling accomplishes two things: the tree’s energy is diverted to the roots, encouraging root development, thus establishing a strong root system; nipping the terminal tip will force side branching, the point at which the gardener can begin shaping his tree. Off with its head: eight inches… cut just above a fat bud. It is advisable to stake the tree, too—especially here in our windy Valley. Once the tree establishes a sturdy root system and a straight trunk, the stake can be removed.

A well-shaped tree produces higher quality fruit and makes the task of pruning much easier. The end result is to create a tree that has only three or four “leaders,” the main limbs that branch from the trunk. Depending on the side branches, it may take a few pruning seasons to achieve this end. Patience is the key here. Because the shaping  takes place over a few years, don’t prune a young tree too heavily. To open up the tree’s center, it may be necessary to “spread” the branches. A piece of lath notched at both ends and cut to size serves this purpose well. Larger limbs can be pulled into the desired position by wiring the bent limb to a sturdy stake, forcing it away from the center of the tree. (Man’s the master here, right?) A note of caution: bare wire around a branch will girdle it; thread the wire through a section of nylon tubing or old garden hose and position this buffer at the tension point around the limb.

As with any job, proper tools make it easier. Most pruning tasks can be accomplished with a long handled pair of loppers (the long handles allow for greater leverage to cut larger branches), a  pruning pole for a higher reach, a pruning saw, also on a long handle, and a sturdy hand-held saw. Oh…and a three-point orchard ladder for those tippy-top branches you’ve given free rein by skipping a couple years of pruning (shame on you!) These tools should be sufficient if pruning is done regularly. Reserve chainsaw work for rotting or diseased leaders—or if you’ve been out of town for a dozen years and left your trees to fend for themselves.

When it comes time for you and your tree to square off (you still have time but don’t wait much longer; the sap is starting to flow), consider following these steps: cut or snap off barehanded those frisky water sprouts (in orchardist parlance “suckers”) that bristle up the back of big limbs and leaders during the growing season. If these are lopped off, two more will appear in their place next season, so snapping them off is best if possible. After a half dozen years a node will develop and the suckers sprout from it like hairs from a mole. At this point, remove the node with a saw to avoid having to snip numerous individual suckers every season.

If you have large cuts to make—rotten or diseased leaders, thick limbs—make them next. Drooping limbs can be stiffened up by cutting them back (be sure to cut just ahead of a bud, especially if it’s a fruiting bud). Do the same with the vertical branches. Doing this will slow upward growth while at the same time promoting side branching and more fruiting wood. To allow more sunlight to reach the fruit, branches that overlie each other should either be cut back or one of the two cut off entirely. Over time these “crossover” limbs create a small jungle and will turn your tree into an unruly customer and come picking time create a barrier between you and your harvest.

After you have pruned your way around the tree, take a few steps back and check your work. Walk the perimeter for another perspective. I guarantee you’ll head back into the fray to snip another branch or two, do a bit more twig tweaking. If you have doubts whether to cut a branch or leave it, let it  rest until next year. The tree’s not going anywhere, after all, and if the branch needs to be removed, one more year will make it that more obvious. Pruning is not a a precise art. There comes a point, however, when you need to lay down your weapons and just walk away.

Perhaps you’ll never be a master gardener, a grandmaster at chess, a master chef or even a master of ceremonies. But when it comes to that fruit tree of yours, you can certainly show it who’s the master of the place.