A DAY IN THE ORCHARD

I found a friend in the yard today. I was pulling Bermuda grass out of the irises when this chonky fellow popped up.

I love toads. They seem so...wholesome. Simple, earthy, unpretentious.

We had a toad once that would hop up our front steps at night to hunt for bugs that were drawn to the porch lights.

I cannot encounter a toad without speaking to it. "Well, hello, friend! How are you today?" I have often said that if I had a spirit animal, it would be a manatee. Perhaps, instead, it would be a toad.

Today, I worked in the abandoned orchard that clings to the hills behind our house. Despite being grossly neglected, the little trees just keep growing, sinking their roots a little deeper each year, struggling against the weeds and bugs and diseases that threaten them.

A friend and I used to attend an annual gardening expo. My friend Donna is a Garden Goddess, a gifted woman who grows all things beautiful and unique. My grandmother Louise was a Garden Witch with terrifying magical powers: I honestly believe she could poke a dead stick in the ground and be harvesting a bumper crop of peaches or apples from it a year later. Me...I think I could plant Kudzu and it would die.

One workshop Donna and I attended many years ago was on growing fruit trees. The extension agent who taught the workshop lamented the number of folks who asked her to come out and assess their trees to determine what was wrong with them because they bore little to no fruit. She would arrive at a little orchard to find the trees choked with waist-high grass and weeds.

"How often do you mow around your trees?"

"Mow around them? Never. They're trees. Why do I need to mow around them?"

"When do you spray your trees to protect them from harmful pests?"

"Spray? I don't spray them at all. I thought trees just kinda take care of themselves."

The extension agent went on: "If you are not going to provide your home orchard even the very minimum of care, why do you expect it to bear fruit for you? Don't expect me to give you some miracle solution to offset your blatant neglect!"

Camille's summary of the workshop: Fruit trees (vegetables, flowers, people, etc) require basic care and routine maintenance to be fruitful.

So, back to the neglected little orchard behind our house...

My son planted the trees when he was a boy. He planted and tended the little orchard when the trees were no more than thin limbless whips. The trees put down roots and pushed out branches. My son pruned and shaped the trees, helping them grow strong so they would be ready to bear the weight of the fruit they would one day produce.

My son is a grown man now and has not lived here for many, many years. The little trees stand surrounded by waist-high weeds, all but forgotten in the field behind the house.

I asked Granddaddy once - many years ago - to teach me how to use the tractor and bush-hog mower, so that I could mow the orchard. Granddaddy said that driving a tractor was not a thing for women to do, and so he would not teach me. Granddaddy said he would "take care of it," except that mowing the orchard behind my house was not a priority on his list. He had a thousand other more pressing obligations. 

(I still don't understand what it was about mowing with a tractor and bush-hog that Granddaddy thought required a person to have a penis. I have a friend - a very womanly woman friend - who drives a tractor and mows fields without any difficulty at all, despite the fact that she has no penis at all. Maybe someone failed to explain to her that she is not qualified for the job?)

Anyway, the orchard did not get mowed, and privet grew up around the little trees. So much privet, in fact, that there was more privet than fruit trees.

I think even I could plant privet and it would grow, but I know better than to plant privet. Privet is a devil plant. Nobody - NOBODY - should ever, ever, ever plant privet.

But somebody did plant privet here on the farm, many-many-many years ago, and now it is everywhere. No matter where I walk on the farm, I find privet. Birds eat the fruit from the privet and scatter seeds when they poop, because birds don't know any better.

But back to the sad, struggling little orchard behind the house...

Today was beautiful - sunshiny and warm, a day to be outside. So, I finished the laundry and grocery shopping this morning, then headed outdoors this afternoon to absorb some much-needed Vitamin D.

Before

I bought myself a little pruning saw. It is lovely and works like a dream.

Today, I cleared privet out of the neglected orchard. As I sawed and hacked and dragged privet away from the little fruit trees, I remembered the gardening workshop years ago, and the extension agent's amazement at and frustration with people who do nothing to tend their trees and yet are disappointed that their trees bear no fruit. I also thought how much easier it would be to mow regularly than to do the back-breaking work of clearing years-old privet. Oh, well.

After

Tomorrow, I may not be able to walk or raise my arms above my head. But today? Today was very, very good.

And the little fruit trees? They look like they can breathe freely again.