Espalier

[home_and_away]

Dreamt last night of a breed of apple tree that naturally grew low and wide and more or less in a flat plane, the easier to show every flower to every passing pollinator and the easier to offer up its fruit. They also had two fairly short dormant cycles, one requiring a hard frost and the other requiring three to five days of drought and blistering heat. So they fruited twice a season and at odd times.

I remember walking between two rows of these trees in either dawn or twilight, plucking apples just as they dropped into my hand on their own, and tucking them gently into my apron. The apples were slightly larger than my fist and a shade of yellow/gold that glowed. They had thin skins and soft, syrupy sweet flesh. Machines couldn't harvest these apples without losing 3/4 of the crop; they had to be hand-picked.

I remember the joy I felt, handling the apples, and the wary concentration, too. Couldn't carry too many or the first-picked would start to bruise. It was almost time to go back to the storage buildings and put this load away, but I didn't want to leave the trees yet.

Hm.

Comments

[phoenixredux.livejournal.com]

So did you hear about the 100 year old apple orchard they're trying to revive north of Duluth? Perhaps you were sleeping, and your alarm clock is set to NPR, and you dreamed about something on the radio? I do that a lot!

http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/18333/

[ladywind.livejournal.com]

~applause!~ Hadn't heard about that, actually! That's awesome. I wonder whether the trees have hybridised in human absence.