The Orchard Is at Pink

apple buds fling
            pink sweetness
spring frenzy

Apple growers, as well as beekeepers, fruit researchers, and orchard advisory consultants, all casually announce, “The orchard is at pink.” It’s their scientific way of saying, “The festivities are soon to begin.” Pink is one of the growth stages in fruit trees — when each tightly clustered fruit bud opens, and anywhere from five to seven individual flower buds, each enrobed in pink, magenta, or red petals, rise from a whorl of tender green leaves.

The King Bloom is encircled by buds.

Each one of these pink-robed buds is prepared to produce an apple. Before finding myself the owner of a small orchard, I assumed that one fruit bud would create one apple. But the apple tree wants to ensure its own longevity: each fruit bud opens to a cluster of blossoms, with each blossom capable of producing fruit. In the center is the King Bloom, the strongest and largest. All the others are in reserve, princes and princesses waiting to take over the throne should something happen to the King. The King Bloom opens first, and the others follow soon after.  It’s possible that each of these pink buds will produce an apple with the King Bloom in the center.

Pink is the time when the banquet table is set. The scurrying and preparation is done. The orchard grasses have greened, the daffodils and dandelions are in bloom, and we have planted out our new trees. The first loud guests arrive. Robins and mourning doves hop from ground to tree; bluebirds flit through the branches. The herons are back and fly their pattern from Delaney wetlands to beyond the orchard and back again, necks stretching, wings flapping, achingly beautiful. Geese honk incessantly defending their nesting areas, and a pair of swans antagonizes any creature not respectful of their water rights.

Last Sunday I saw my first bumblebee, and on Monday, Melissa Ljosa brought two hives of honeybees who will live here all year. I had to take a sculpture to the Design Center in Boston that morning and when I returned, I heard the bees as I walked among our Asian pear trees. I didn't have to look; I could feel their buzzing energy.

Asian pear white buds.

Our Asian pears are in full bloom, always one stage ahead of the apples. I smelled the trees’ sour scent. Asian pears, so delicious and sweet to eat, give off an unappealing odor, old cheese, (at least judged by this human). Pears, as well as plums and cherries, have white fruit buds, thus, orchardists don’t use the designation pink, but white bud. These clusters of white buds are beautiful, but only apples have a rosette of green leaves with pink rising. This contrast of color makes apple blossoms magical.

When the apple orchard was at pink, I used to call Gus Skamarycz, our beekeeper for many years before he retired. My call at pink would let him know the blossoms had donned their lipstick and were almost ready to greet the bees. He would wait a few days, and then arrive before sunup with two hives. I would meet him in the orchard, his bees still asleep.

“Why so early?” I asked the first year.

“I want the bees to open their eyes in a new place, see the blossoms, and go to work,” he replied.

When I asked, “How long does it take a hive to pollinate an orchard?” Looking around, Gus said, “A strong hive can pollinate this orchard in a few hours, but you have different varieties.”

Not all of our trees will bloom at the same time. The Macintosh apples are the first to open and the earliest to ripen; the Golden Blushing apples reach full blossom two weeks later—their ripening peaks in early October. Gus’s bees would stay for two weeks to provide pollination for all the trees. With Melissa’s two hives now in residence, we don’t worry about pollination and she doesn’t worry about food for her bees.

Next week we will be at bloom in the apple orchard, the stage when the pink buds open. Join us next Saturday, May 6 for Blossom Viewing. We’ll be in the orchard from 3 to 5 if the day is sunny. Bring paints, pen and paper or a poem to share; we’ll listen to the bees and toast the trees, our own free-form, apple blossom viewing.

Who are the Crones?

We are the crones, the old and wrinkled, wise ones. We have many names— Hecate, Spider Grandmother, Demeter; Siren, Gaea, and Oracle. We wait at the crossroads. We praise and encourage the living, we honor and care for the dying. In times of darkness, we know spring will return.

Woman Launching Boat, bronze sculpture, cherry wood, LH

At the time of the winter solstice ancient people believed that we must help the Light to be reborn. In many cultures, the crones facilitated this return. Women carried the mystery of life and death; women labored to guide back the sun. 

 Then things changed and men took control of women, especially in matters of religion.

Buddhism has traditionally followed the established social norms of the patriarchy into which the Buddha was born. When the Buddha established the rules for his followers, he differentiated between nuns and monks. Any nun, no matter how old or enlightened, had to bow down to a monk, even a novice. In Zen monasteries, the lineage of the transmission from one male teacher to the next has always been chanted as part of the service. Recently, things are changing. At Zen Mountain Monastery we now chant the names of the enlightened women of the way in addition to the male lineage. There were many great and compassionate teachers who taught students both male and female. Today, we have an altar in the front of the meditation hall for Mahapajapati, the first Buddhist nun and teacher.

I began to think about other groups of women left unsung. In the American frontier world, Johnny Appleseed is a celebrated hero. He stands out as a bold revolutionary, spreading seeds and saplings, helping the settlers establish ownership to land by planting an orchard, and sharing his beliefs based on the Swedenborg religion. But who are the frontier women who helped create this country?  I found a few famous names—Belle Star, Poker Alice, Pearl deVere, Annie Oakley, Etta Place, and Calamity Jane. Belle was known for riding in a black velvet dress, six guns on her hips, and holding up stagecoaches. Poker Alice—you guessed it—was a devilishly good poker player, and bordello owner. Pearl deVere operated The Old Homestead, a lavishly upscale brothel in Cripple Creek, Colorado. You get the picture. Nice women don’t make history, but the names we choose to remember determine the history we remember.

The myths of ancient people are filled with stories of goddesses whose powers equaled that of their male counterparts. The history of women in the West is much more than brothels, bars, and Wild West shows. It is the story of hardworking American women, Native American women, Spanish-Mexican women, and the Chinese immigrant women who were sold and shipped to California by their impoverished families to work in laundries, bars, and mining camps. We need to remember all of these women and what a dark place the world has been for so many of them.  

Solstice Fire, Old Frog Pond Farm, photo: Alexis Pappis

December 21st is the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. At the farm we have a solstice fire where we reenact the return of the sun. In our ritual, it is the crones who go on a journey to find the sun and rebirth the Light. The crones remind us that there are many kinds of darkness. The darkness of racism and sexism, of hatred and war, of injustice, of sorrow and loss. The crones also remind us that there is darkness inside each of us, as well as a light. It is from this light, this often forgotten or darkened light, that the Goddesses labor, and birth the sun. Like Demeter knowing that she will be rejoined with her daughter, Persephone, we need to trust that the light will return, grief will be healed, and plants will bear fruit again.

Carl Jung said, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." In remembering the names of those women who are forgotten, we shine light into the darkness of their cultural obscurity. As we light the solstice fire, we bring light to this world stamped with anger, aggression, and force. In gathering and opening our hearts to one another we grow the light. Happy Solstice!

Avoiding Apples

Last week I got an email from our local Harvard weekly newspaper asking about the crop this year.

Hi Linda,

I’m doing a piece this week on this year’s apple crop damage. Frank Carlson is estimating a crop that will be about 50 to 75 percent of an average year’s crop. Are you seeing that kind of damage to your crop? He said his Cortlands were hit the hardest, but Macs are also off. 

Are your raspberries ok?

Let me know, sad year for the orchards, especially those who grow peaches.

Thanks,

 Joan

Frank Carlson is the patriarch of the orchard world in Harvard. When I first decided to bring back our trees, I called him. I felt shy about disturbing the man who was running the largest orchard in town, but I needed to make a connection with someone who knew about apples. Frank told me to come by, but when I arrived, I wasn’t really sure why I was there. It was harvest time, and there were towers of wooden crates filled with freshly picked apples. Frank was a mini-cyclone, answering his pager, cell phone, and loudspeaker calls, but he still took the time to chat with me in between answering questions that came at him from all sides.

Nodding, he said, “I’m familiar with A & M Orchards.” I told him that its new name was Old Frog Pond Farm and that I wanted to grow organic apples. “A small operation that is organic might work,” he continued. I sensed a sympathetic familiarity among anyone growing apples. I appreciated Frank’s openness and drove away with a glimmer of hope.  This year is a different story.

 I wrote back to the Harvard Press reporter,

 Dear Joan,

Yes - a sad year!

Our apples are certainly down 50 percent. It is variety dependent. The late flowering ones are all right, but varieties that flowered early were killed off by the frost.

Raspberries are doing well and it seems like a bumper crop of blueberries.

We have a few peaches…enough for us to eat; but indeed a very sad year for peach growers.

I think climate change is wreaking havoc with our perennial fruit crops. They suffer from these wild temperature fluctuations early in the season when the buds and blossoms are so vulnerable.

Linda

Climate change is the biggest factor affecting all of us. Plants don’t evolve as quickly as climate change is happening. Some good news is that one approach to lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to store more carbon in the soil. The soil benefits, the plants benefit, and the earth becomes healthier. 

Much of the carbon originally came from the soil and was released into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. We have agreed that we need to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere but where can it go? Water covers 70 percent of our planet and when carbon combines with water it forms carbonic acid raising the acidity of the water and killing off plant life. Soil can take back and store carbon if we change our approach to industrial agriculture and land use.

One of the most important practices is to cover every square foot of soil with plants. Erosion is a number one cause of the loss of carbon. The second practice is to avoid tilling the soiling or minimally till. Tilling exposes soil to the air and releases carbon. Plants do the opposite through photosynthesis. Even if our fruit trees aren’t producing peaches and apples, they are removing carbon from the atmosphere.

The French government recently put forward an initiative, 4p1000.org with the goal of mitigating climate change effects through agriculture. Already 28 countries have signed on including France, Mexico, Japan — no, not the United States. The benefit of carbon rich soils is that the plants become more resilient. When we eat the food produced by these healthier plants, human health also improves.

While this year we may not have a good apple crop, hopefully by continuing to support our trees and encouraging their growth, they will become stronger and be able to adjust better to the fluctuations in temperatures that are certainly going to be part of our lives for the next decades. Climate Change Boston has just released their projections for Boston that include 90 days of summer over 90 degrees, which is essentially all of summer.  

Still, it’s a sad year for fruit growers and the reason I have been avoiding writing about apples. The trees may be luscious with leaves, but there is really very little fruit. Truthfully, my estimate is far less than 50 percent, but I hate to say it.  It’s so disappointing, and then I think that maybe I did something wrong, or that I could have done something differently.

Frank Carlson said that people are already calling for peaches. Their annual peach festival attracts a large following every year. It won’t happen this year, but they will be celebrating their 80th anniversary this summer. When the fruit is not as plentiful, your orchards need your support even more. Even if our apples aren’t plentiful, we hope you will come for raspberry picking, vegetables, workshops, our Plein Air Poetry Walk, and Outdoor Sculpture exhibits. This year we  celebrate our 15th anniversary!

The New Year

The apple trees, leafless and now snow boughed, hardly look like they did a few months ago when every branch seemed invisibly tethered to the earth by the weight of the fruit. Fall, 2015, will be remembered as a bumper year for apples in New England. Trees that hadn’t blossomed in over a decade produced a bountiful crop.  Some of them still hold their fruit like splendid seasonal decorations. These old trees are two stories high; their fruit too high for deer, but perfect for crows and jays.

In the fall, when the days are shorter and the light decreases, apple trees drop their leaves and stop growing. They spend a dormant period with their stored energy like bears in hibernation. The trees start to grow again after they receive a certain number of chill hours followed by heat. Each variety has its own ‘chill’ requirement.      

The chilling happens while the trees are dormant, seemingly lifeless. There is no reaching towards warmth and light; they are motionless. Their lives are not measured in growth, in doing; but in resting.

So much in the life of an orchard can be compared to a human life. Thinking about chill hours makes me ask. What might our chill requirement be?  From what kind of chill hours would we most benefit?

In the days around the New Year, can we find time to rest, regroup, and refocus?  The New Year offers us a chance to take up the questions of a transition time.  What do I want to do differently this year than I did last year?  How do I want to live my life? What changes would I like to make? To honestly reflect on these questions one needs a moment of dormancy.

I measure my own ‘chill’ hours in quiet time alone, in silent meditation, in working with our fruit trees.  I can remember a day last fall when I was so filled with the constant demands of the outside world that I went back to the Asian pear orchard and began pulling weeds. The contact with the earth restored my inner balance. Other people find their chill hours hiking in the wilderness, singing in a chorus, or even cooking.

A chilling period that goes beyond the needs of a tree will often translate into a larger bloom, as if this longer period of dormancy energizes the tree beyond its normal capacity. How wonderful is that! Perhaps this is might be part of the explanation for the 2015 bumper year for apples. While most of us grew weary and frustrated with the frequency of heavy snowfalls and the endless cold, the trees appreciated the long chill temperatures. For apples, more chill time equals a better crop.  

May you find chill time this winter in preparation for your own fruiting.