For years, I called it a prune tree. And my Brooks prune, once it had been in the ground a while, obligingly provided a prune nearly every August. Maybe September. One prune. It dawned on me that perhaps I should call it a prunes tree. Much more obligingly (or equally obligingly, if we follow the logic of “naming calls”) the tree has supplied a much more abundant crop ever since. Not quite bushels, but a bowlful or two. And it’s still a young tree–I have hopes.
It’s a nice short tree, still, as am I–short, not a tree. (But if I were a tree, I would be a big leaf maple with moss and ferns along my weighty, embracing branches. Or maybe I would be a pink dogwood at the very end of April. Possibly a sugar maple. Or an oak, on a knoll, Oregon August, yellow grass, blue sky, dry air.)
I prune my prunes tree mostly standing on the ground; only two or three cuts require a step ladder. It took me maybe ten minutes this afternoon, counting time spent arranging the ladder on the uneven ground. I’m not sure that even counts as pruning. Pruning implies laborious, possibly a work crew, certainly hours out of doors. Today was January warm, 60 degrees I think, or thereabouts. The snowdrops are just this close to opening. (“If it’s not real snow, I won’t come look,” my son said. But I love that we seldom have real snow here.)
One hellebore just about to open. Pink buds on the daphne getting fat. Daffodil blades everywhere, though no flowers, not even buds. The gangly wintersweet I always want to tear out midsummer is blooming, with an odd, mild, delicious scent–though you have to be right there, nose on flower, to catch it. Of course, the vinca minor (evil periwinkle) is blooming. It never rests. And I saw a couple of forget-me-not flowers. I was out of doors for hours, yes, but most of the time was spent pulling weeds.
And planning. August. Prunes. Maybe this year, we’ll have enough to dry. Where I grew up, prune was to plum as raisin is to grape, but here we eat them fresh and call them prunes and it all comes out in the wash. Where I grew up, nothing bloomed in January, not even a hint. When I was in graduate school, my mother wrote from Oregon, mid February, “what’s blooming there?” and I’ve never let her forget it.
Today was so springy, I almost felt I’d missed winter, missed the chance to prune the prunes when it might do some good. I don’t know if rain is forecast for tomorrow. I know the mountains don’t yet have snow, or at least not much for skiing. Winter ends before it begins and begins before it starts, and we just watch the weather and wonder if it used to be like this or if maybe we lost track along the way. By summer, it might be too dry for fruit trees, too dry for anything to grow. The climate’s changing. But we have to try, and if we don’t try now–prepare the ground–we can’t go back and pick the chore up later. Slice it how you will, gardening is always an act of faith, or hope, or just-in-case.