A bit of this and that

I’ve been gazing out the kitchen window all week at the spectacle of the daylilies coming into their prime. They are really going to town and I’m especially enamored of this pairing; the cones of the Echinacea flowers are the same color as the deep orange lily, and the purple of the petals provides a fantastic contrast.

This reddish day lily is one of my top faves and I’m glad to see its spreading.

Mr. D came back from the nursery today toting this new Echinacea named “tomato soup”, I think its going to blend in nicely.

As I crossed the lawn to pick a few apples, the young red-shouldered hawk that’s been stalking our yard swooped up and landed in a cedar tree on the edge of the clearing. He let me get very close, taking picture after picture but finally he flew. A few minutes later David spied him on the edge of the woodland path and the bird was completely unperturbed by D. walking past several times. I’m hopeful he might make supper out of Flopsy or Mopsy and relieve us of the task of having to dispatch them.

Here is a little fruit sampler, check out the size of those blackberries, made to look even fatter by the fact that the apples are actually rather small. Our first apples are now beginning to ripen up, this one is called Carolina Red June, they are tart and a little soft, Macintosh like, we are trying to pick them a little early hoping they’ll be crisper, not sure about how to pick apples, never having had them before, but we are excited at the prospect and have 4 other varieties still to ripen up.

Heading out to the mountains tomorrow for a few days in the cool highlands, I’m eager to dip this body into some chilly water. We picked a good time to go, supposed to be scorching hot down here all week long.

Adolescent Fruit

Now that the strawberries are finished I’m looking forward to the next fruit crops, it will be a few weeks before the first blueberries are ripe enough to eat, happily we have 5 varieties so the blueberry season continues for a couple of months.

Then the blackberries will come along in July and make me want to bake pies.

The highest hope for the season are our first peaches and apples. We had a few peaches on the tree last year but the pesky squirrels ate them all when they were still green. That was the act that made us take up arms and eliminate 9 squirrels from the yard last summer. They are re-infiltrating of course, but maybe they haven’t discovered the fruit trees yet? That’s doubtful so we’ve already started taking a few shots at them as they graze on bird seed below the feeders, but either our aims went bad over the winter or our scope has gone out of calibration, perhaps a bit of both. We haven’t killed one yet this season but not for lack of trying.

The apples are particularly exciting. We planted five heirloom varieties nearly 4 years ago, they were bare root sticks and we’ve been patiently waiting. This is the first year they have bloomed and set fruit so we are filled with anticipation for their ripening, even if we only get a handful from each tree it will be a thrill.

I check from day to day on the various fruit, since the big rain earlier in the week things have really plumped up and I think we’ll see a decent crop on most things. The pubescent fuzz of the peaches and sheen on the apples fill me with expectancy, give me something to look forward to. Having fruit really lets you know you’ve been in the same place for a while and plan to stay.

We joke about planting pecan trees, but don’t believe we would ever see a nut, and besides, we don’t really have space for those giants. My brother Jonny and his wife Candy just put in fruit at their new house, he said they've been chanting "blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, fig". To that ditty I would add "bake me a pie and dance me a jig!"