Trees are no stranger to this blog. I’ve chatted about a spruce planted during my 4-H days. I’ve mentioned bald cypress and their tricks with needles that make a Northerner think they’ve died.
And this year I’ve highlighted the neighborhood apple tree from twig, to bud, to bloom to fruit. I’ve even mentioned roots more than once – in reference to the need for a water supply in either the form of a refreshing rain or help from humans.
This takes roots to an entirely new level. They’re exposed. Naked. Embarrassed?
I’m thinking this is great inspiration for the engineers who create playground climbing structures.
What’s under the stump?
Apples are in season. Visit an infant orchard in Hiding Places.
The schools are back in session. Those that tried to get a start on the teaching/learning by opening during August may even get an increase in student attention span now that most public swimming pools are closed and that final family cook out (or wash out, depending on the weather) is history.
Now the oral and written reports with the “what did you do this summer” begin. Teachers will receive the usual – a family trip, visiting relatives, a trip to a local attraction, or a description of a day working for parents.
Some of the students have sprouted — gaining inches in height. There’s a reason parents do back to school shopping. Other things have sprouted and gained maturity.
Today’s photo was taken in late May. It looks pretty bleak. A hint of things to come but not a charming vista.
Giving a Hint
Spring and summer have worked magic in the orchard. Blossoms, leaves, fruit set and thinned. Solid globes growing on sunny days and through the warm nights. Roots drinking the warm rain to feed leaves and fruit. Harvest is coming.
Orchards are opening to the public. Early varieties are ready to harvest and others in queue behind. Visit an orchard. Drink in some fresh country air – it will have a note of crisp in a few more weeks. Enjoy. Learn. Savor fresh fruit of the land.
What sort of people start a new apple orchard? One answer is in Hiding Places. It’s available in both ebook and paperback formats.
The morning began with a thunderstorm. Wind tested the flex of the branches while fat raindrops washed bits of dust and pollution from the leaves. The violence passed and left a light, nourishing rain in its wake. But one large limb, a third of the bulk, lay prone, leafy branches mere steps from the building.
The remainder of the tree stood tall then, the top taller than the two story building it guarded. You could imagine it sighing, welcoming the overdue moisture to roots. Welcoming damp against the fresh wound. Perhaps dreaming of the children it had watched and sheltered during the years. They chased each other around the expanding trunk. Played in the deep red fall leaves. And laughed as the white blossoms fell like snow in the spring.
The truck and trailer arrived out of the misty rain. Two men exited the cab and donned hard hats. Then they grabbed the chainsaws and readied for the attack.
Within minutes proud branches lay sprawled across a patch of lawn, sidewalk and into the parking lot. The men cut with surgical precision before lifting the tree, portion by portion, into the hungry wood chipper. They were tidy and efficient. All that remains now is a memory and a marker (temporary until men return with a grinder).
R.I.P. Bradford Pear
No wind damage in the apple orchard. Check out Hiding Places to find Linc and Mona’s story. Available as ebook or paperback from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
The apple tree in the neighborhood has blossomed, set fruit, and produced leaves. Now the real work begins. Sunshine, seasonal temperatures, and occasional rain keep the nutrients flowing up through the roots. The marvel of photosynthesis filters a constantly changing stream of air weaving between the leaves.
Don’t touch. Let them grow. Soon enough these snacks will reach mature size and blush as they ripen into sweet, crunchy fruit.
No, not the title characters in the classic Disney movie.
Apple tree.
When I was a tiny girl we lived in a small town and had an apple tree in the yard that was large enough to accommodate my swing. My parents took it down – I’m not sure why but it was old and prone to storm damage.
During the years that followed we visited an apple orchard once each fall. The trees were large and planted in rows. The view at harvest included ladders for the pickers to climb and canvas bags worn over one shoulder. Most of our visit was spent in the sales shed as my parents discussed the merits of the different varieties and how much of their favorites to purchase.
A recent drive to orchards demonstrated acres of semi-dwarf trees. They stand as sturdy individuals in rows. Shorter and pruned for easier harvest I’d guess that any ladder required is of the four or five step variety.
According to my source — new plantings tend to be full dwarf. They are trained to a trellis. More trees per acre. A tall man with good reach could harvest without a ladder. And while the example below is from a botanical garden instead of a commercial orchard — the principle is the same.
The petals have fallen. The bees are flying on to other trees and plants.
Does this mean our apple tree is done and exhausted?
Certainly not. It’s time to set the fruit. Do a little natural thinning from all that exuberance of the last few weeks.
They begin tiny — little more than knobs at the end of a slender stem. Then the testing begins. Can they hang on during a breeze? Do they get pushed aside by a growing leaf? Is the competition for nutrients too stiff? One by one they fall to the ground. If they land on grass they have a chance to contribute to the cycle of life. Cement or asphalt landings increase the odds of getting crushed and swept away as debris.
Botany books call this “June drop”. Our tree is located in a mild enough climate zone that it happened in late May. Orchardists encourage this phenomena with a weak acid spray (Linc uses this in Hiding Places) or with manual removal of excess fruit.
The goal is one, or possibly two, large and healthy apples per blossom cluster.
I think our subject is setting up fine. I’m looking forward to a late summer snack already.
September Snack?
Hiding Places is now available as an ebook from Crimson Romance, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.
Moisture, temperature, and time combined and continued the progress on the apple blossoms we’ve been following on the Friday edition of this blog.
Stories and novels need the right conditions to burst upon the world also. Begin with a solid story, much like the tree with existing structure of roots, trunk, and branches. Then add something new and polish it until the words unfold and each page is a majestic petal. Add a publisher with professional editing and formatting experience (plus established relationship with retail outlets) and you have a book ready for publication.
Currently Hiding Places is available for pre-order. Effective Monday, June 9, it will zip to your electronic reader upon demand. (And payment of retailer’s asking price.) Visit the dedicated page on this site, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble for a peek at Mona and Linc’s sweet romance with complications.
From hair-fine rootlet to larger and larger specialized structure to the fashionable trunk the nutrients wick upward in the xylem. Then plant food, nature’s best, takes a turn – to the right, or the left, or slightly down – into a limb that narrows to a branch that becomes twig.
Small can be mighty as tiny stems feed a swelling blossom.
A novel begins small — perhaps with a single, small idea. Then it becomes a word, a sentence, a paragraph and a chapter. Like drops of natural chemicals dissolved from dirt feed apple blossoms in the spring words fill pages as a story grows and takes a definite form.
Can you see the future apple in the photo?
Can you find a story in the next sentence you write?
Hiding Places, a sweet romantic suspense, is available for pre-order on Amazon. Come along and join Mona and Linc as they learn about more than apples in the orchard.
Even the name reflects it. Ever green. Always. Year round. Dependable.
During the summer months you don’t pick them out of a crowd. The competition with their deciduous relatives can be intense. It can also be helpful as nearby grasses and trees drink up rain preventing wash outs and their potential harm. It’s good to have neighbors.
Writing can be a constant. For successful authors it’s a year-round occupation with the desire for more hours per day. When one book is sent out into the world — like pollen or seed — to find it’s own way it’s not time to stop. No, it’s time to begin on the new idea, write a draft to polish and shine.
This is not to mean authors don’t celebrate. The crowd I hang out with favor chocolate and wine as rewards for a job well done.
This tree below, with it’s fine sheared shape, has more than likely graced a family living room during a recent holiday season.
Giving year-round pleasure to the eye.
Will you be near Plum City, Wisconsin this weekend? Drop into the library on Saturday to meet the author of Starr Tree Farm.
At first glance you may not see much relationship between a book and a tree. Or in the stories I’ll be telling in the next several Friday entries – between evergreens, apple trees, and romance books. Bear with me and I hope to clarify things.
My writing would be categorized as: fiction, romance, suspense, small-town.
The trees featured in this blog are designated by kingdom, phylum, (continue down to…) genus, species, and variety. And while the photos are not exact (I speak of Balsam fir in Starr Tree Farm and the picture is a Fraizer fir) they aim for an idea, not scientific accuracy.
Today we continue the story of the apple tree along my morning walk. The variety is unknown. And if you go back a week or two you’ll see a little uncertainy about tree selection during the dormant season.
Writing is filled with dormant seasons. I mean the times when on the surface no words are written. But below the surface the roots are seeking information through research and the author plays the mental “what if” game at the oddest times. From questions come more questions and a few answers. Ideas begin to unfold like these tender leaves that only a few days ago protected the future from harsh conditions.
An idea opens.
Read a mature winter idea in Starr Tree Farm. Now available in paperback from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
