Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me!
Every spring I walk over to the apple trees, lean over then search for any sign of life! It's an iffy thing to plant an apple tree in Alaska, but so far we have been blessed with beautiful blossoms and actual little apples from two apple trees in our yard. One is a crab apple and the other is a Norland apple. My daughter Karla and her husband Chris are wondering why their apple trees have been slowly getting weaker. I suspect a cold ground.
Alaska's native trees roots grow along the surface because the ground does not have summer enough to warm up very deep. Some places never completely thaw! So rather than dig a hole deep as the pot we are transpanting from the nursery we dig a larger diameter hole then spread the roots out to catch more heat. That keeps the non-native trees and bushes happy. If the ground does not warm up then the roots do not work right. But at the same time, if we don't get rain, then the ground dries up and the trees with shallow roots are in trouble too.
I've also heard that roots don't grow up, they only grow downward.
There is a good object lesson in all of that somewhere!
Anyway, I am thankful for the apple trees, they are so beautiful in the spring for a week or so before they drop their petals and begin to grow little apples.
The first year that we had apples actually grow, we did not breath a word of it to our grandchildren for fear that they would yank them all off. Well, one day, our granddaughter Ashlee found the little baby apples and she picked off every one of them then began stuffing them into her mouth! The rest she held in her hands. With all the wind and coldness, the amount of apples that survive far enough to harvest them are very few and with greedy Grandchildren the chances of getting just one beautiful bowl of apples is rare! I wonder if she will even remember her joy of finding apples on a tree and eating them?
I am always so happy to see the blooms and watch the apples grow as much as they can. I sure hope thre trees get strongly established and that they survive longer than I do --- then others can still enjoy their beauty long after we are here.
We got a bit of rain here and I could almost hear the earth sighing with as much thankfulness as I felt! Thank God for rain! It is good.
"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned." Hebrews 6:4-8
1 comment:
My Yaya had apple and plum trees in his yard. I still remember the day he told me that it was okay to pick the fruit. The only trees I ever climbed were his. Picking fruit from his trees is one of my most precious childhood memories.
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