This is what it feels like to be warm

 

Yesterday temperatures climbed pleasantly into the low 70's, and Andy's big delivery from Miller Nurseries arrived. Puzzling it out this afternoon we had to retrieve the catalog in order to remember what some of the plants were.  Aronia, for instance. Beach plums. Was there a paw-paw tree?  What does a high-bush cranberry look like after it starts to grow?  When the bushes and trees come out of the long, brown paper wrapper, they're all just bare sticks.  It takes some imagination to make them into an 8-10 ft. bush covered in pink blossoms, or a small tree laden with purple or yellow fruit.  I don't think Pop had it in him; when I told him the stick he was standing next to was a cherry tree, he looked at me like I was insane. "It's a baby tree," I told him, but he just giggled and shook his head. Obviously it was a stick his father had shoved into the ground for vague and mysterious purposes, and his mother was a moron.

 (It's a beach plum.)

I made Andy's life harder -- the latest incident in a long line of incidents, I am sure -- by suggesting that we plant some of these exotic fruits in our yard and not way out in the "orchard" on the hill.  (I have to put "orchard" in quotes because right now it is a motley collection of bare sticks shoved in the ground.  Nothing has leafed out yet, and even the 3 and 4 year old trees look pretty pathetic.  Planting an orchard is an act of faith, even more so than planting a garden.)  The Miller catalog suggested that the highbush cranberry would make a lovely specimen plant.

"It grows 8-10 feet tall!" I said. "And, look - the flowers!"

Andy gave me that look that husbands give their wives when they've been moving furniture all day and a place for the couch has still not been decided upon. But, longsuffering husband that he is, he dug up the cranberry bush from where he'd already planted it near the blackberries on the other side of the garden and planted it instead in the sideyard where the big tree fell the summer Chipmunk was born. He and Katydid planted the aronias -- which the Miller catalog suggests as an ornamental that will attract birds to your yard with its fruit 10x higher in vitamin C than... strawberries... I think -- next to the gate to the "little boys' yard" near the deck, and the beach plums along the back of the fence there. Or -- one beach plum was planted.  Somehow the second beach plum necessary for pollination was not ordered.

You may be asking yourself what I was doing while my husband was rearranging shrubs for me. Well, I did run some errands in the morning. I took the 3 older kids to Agway, which was PACKED because it was 80 degrees and everyone was running outside to see the strange yellow ball in the sky, and then, of course, they felt the need to plant something. I bought my seed-starting supplies for melons and okra, and then we hit the library, where I searched in vain for penguin books but happily succumbed to the temptation to check out many spring-related titles:

Well, some spring-related titles anyway.  I couldn't neglect the transportation books, or I'd have gotten a mutiny when I got back home. I did pick up a few botany-related books which I hope the big kids will find (and read):

 

...and I carried Chipmunk around like a baby monkey for most of the afternoon and evening, stopping only for him to help me plant a tray of watermelon seeds, make a quick dinner (salmon patties, broccoli, pineapple), and to eat some ice cream.

And now we are listening to the spring peepers and getting ready for bed.  Life is good.

Comments

[mrs darling]

Goodness your salmon patty dinner sounds lovely! I love these gardening and yard work posts. I've got plants at all stages ready to go in the garden when its a little warmer. I just cant wait.

[Lori]

so true that planting an orchard is an act of faith! and an investment in the future .. and fruit for many people to come. :^)

[Amber]

What a wonderful book shelf to have in your home :)