Malus aforethought

First the good news

My apple trees have delivered their first fruits in what promises to be a bumper year 🙂

Now the bad news

I am three and a half thousand miles away 😦

.

…but in a warmer place 😉

Season’s reasons #3 – The Fall

As surely as the short northern summer passes through my garden, fall must surely follow…

creeping autumn

But we give thanks to the bees (and others) who laboured long at my apple tree to provide the promise of rich pickings in the season of mellow fruitfulness.

Sadly, Quixotree will miss the harvest, having already migrated south in search of warmth…

Season’s reasons 2 – Winter behind us*

Dear Quixotree followers,

You are a select (and very small!) group of tree lovers and others, and Quixotree owes you an apology. Quixotree has been very inactive throughout the northern winter and spring, marooned in that large brown gash on the planet that runs from the atlantic to the himalayas. It is a place where trees generally choose not to visit.

Since returning from southern europe in late October Quixotree has not left the region. By historic standards it has been a wet and (of course) warm winter here in Arabia, but still the trees do not grow. We need less hummus and more humus.

But hope springs eternal. Northern europe is belatedly showing signs of becoming habitable again. A sickly spring is slowly succumbing to an inevitable summer. There are fears of another “year without a summer” (the year 1816 lacked a  european summer, because of an historic low in solar activity and a major volcanic event at Mount Tambora in Indonesia). But summer WILL prevail. In England, it will rain at Wimbledon for the tennis, and then the clouds will clear for the short northern summer. Quixotree will be there, bathing his eyes in verdure.

And – as a sign that nature must conquer in the end – my apple tree three and a half thousand miles from here has decided that it cannot wait any longer if the bees are to be kept busy.

bees required – no previous experience necessary

Bring on summer! *

* with apologies to antipodean friends.