Pruning Prose

We have a home orchard (only twelve trees) and last weekend was time for the bittersweet task of thinning the fruit. Bittersweet because every immature fruit is a future mouthwatering delight, but if there are too many on the tree then they stay small.

It takes a certain kind of ruthlessness to snip off a perfectly good young fruit to make room for its neighbor to grow and develop properly.

The same is true in writing (you knew there was a writing analogy coming, didn't you?), when we hit the revision stage where we decide which pages, paragraphs, sentences, words, punctuation, stay and which go.

But truthfully, when we remove extraneous prose, we're letting what remains grow and develop. To come into its own, in a natural evolution (survival of the fittest, you know) that lets their plumage shine.

So let "cut and paste" stand in for your pruners, and see what ripens on your page.

Time for Another Peek into the Garden

I realized I haven't done any posts with pictures from my garden in a while, but the warm spring weather has made my shutter finger itchy. Here are a few I've taken over the last few days (hint: click on them to make them bigger in a slideshow):

Hope if you have good weather, you're out enjoying it today!

Pumpkins Gone Wild

If you remember from my post last year, when we'd just installed the beds, the garden is doing much better this year. Last year we had such wet, cold weather into June that I didn't even plant anything until July 4th weekend.

We had a similar weather pattern this year, but I decided to forge ahead with the planting anyway. I used Wall o'Waters on the peppers (next year I'll use homemade ones) and they also gave some radiant heat to the tomatoes planted next to them. So now my tomatoes and peppers are looking pretty good, even without the WOWs. You can tell it's transitioning from planting seasons, since the cabbages and chard are still going, and the sweet potatoes are just starting (those are the arrow-shaped leaves in the foreground).



And then there are my pumpkins gone wild! We had a mound of soil that didn't fit in the beds, so I decided to plant the pumpkin seeds right in it, and they're loving it.



And as a final pic for this post, let's check in with the pollywogs in the fountain:



No limbs yet, but some of them are getting more frog-shaped!

And now I need to retreat to my revision-cave once again--after I put the potatoes out in the solar cooker to roast for supper, that is.

Anybody else have some season-extending tips to share?

Poke the Tarantula (That's Not a Euphemism)

I am not posting a picture of the tarantula, in deference to any arachnophobic readers. One of my garden work buckets had a lovely little boy tarantula trapped in it, so I spilled him out. He reared up--very fierce! I left him there, but came back about 10 minutes later and he was still in the middle of the walkway.

So I did the natural thing and went to get a stick to nudge him out of the way. Man those suckers are fast! He whipped around, reared up, and struck the stick several times. They must be really strong, too, because I could feel each strike transmitted up the stick. Luckily, he was not so ballsy as to run up the branch and onto my bare arm.

Let it be known that I am not a fan of overly large insects (potato bugs!!) or arachnids (camel spiders!!) but I don't feel the desire to wantonly kill them. So as long as he doesn't figure out how to use the newly-installed cat door, we should all get along just fine. And maybe he'll take care of some of those nasty centipedes while he's out there.

As for me, no more late-night trips out to the backyard for cat herding while in my bare feet or socks. Knowing that tarantulas are native to this area and seeing one that close to the house are two different things. Denial and reality, respectively.

How My Garden Does Grow!

Our garden has finally started producing some nice green beans, cucumbers, and watermelons. Everything is about a month behind, except that the fruit trees seem to be on schedule. This is the first year we've gotten any Asian pears, since the tree was just a baby--but what a harvest! They looked so pretty in their basket that I had to do a digital painting of them.

Where I've been spending my time lately, when I'm not writing

Our vegetable garden and orchard are finally taking shape at this house; the red buckets in the distance are the far end of the garden area. We planted the raspberries and blackberries in muck buckets to try and foil the volunteers that come up. Not entirely successful, but did make it more manageable.

You'll notice the raised beds, I'm a big fan of them.