Three Birds

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      This is an unlikely account of three birds, whose exact species shall not be mentioned. These three birds all happened to be male, which is probably irrelevant. Well, who knows.
      Bird number one decided it would be a good thing to be cool. So he bought himself a new pair of Ray-Bans with money he borrowed from his mom, flew to New York City and sashayed down the street amongst the crowds of people.

      Of course, it didn’t take long at all for a bird on the sidewalk to get stepped-on, new Ray-Bans notwithstanding. He might have learned from the experience, but only the other two birds, who were watching, realized what it meant. Which of course is, even if you actually are cool, nobody really gives a shit .

      Then bird number one decided maybe doing drugs would make him cool. There are certain challenges for birds that choose to do drugs. One is that you have a lot farther to fall if you’re dropping to the street. Another is dealing with pushers. How the hell would they know what you want, if all you can do is chirp? And a lot of those guys are armed, you know? So doing drugs was a bust after a while too. No pun intended.

      So finally he thought, maybe the ticket was gambling. He started out small, playing chicken with guys on motorcycles. Mostly they didn’t notice something coming that was only just so big, which always meant that bird number one lost. He didn’t learn from that, either, and worse, he was now hooked. So he started shooting craps and playing poker, and was forever losing his shirt.

      Bird number two thought that bird number one should have been number two, because most of the time he looked like it. But when you’re number two, he decided, you might as well accept it and make the best of it.

      Bird number two did possess a special talent, which was introspection. He believed with his whole tender heart, surely there must be a reason he was number two, so he took to prayer in an effort to discover why. Of course, there was no clear answer, which caused bird number two to ask almost continuously for forgiveness. But no matter how hard he prayed, he never really felt absolved. So he got pissed off and gave up on prayer, turning instead to taking comfort from ladies of the evening.

      Actually, they kinda liked him. He was a bird, you know? And they almost never treated him like he was number two.

      Bird number three was the smartest of the three birds. If he’d been a mouse, he would have been the second one that gets the cheese. He knew to hang back and to check out what happened to the other birds. And eventually, it paid off. He worked hard, and discovered that the harder he worked, the luckier he got. Birds do have a certain advantage in this area. He found himself a new “bird” every spring and became a daddy many times over. He enjoyed his active life and became the future of avian existence in his area of influence for many decades to come. Mostly, this was because he had decided he could surely do no worse than had the others, simply by being himself.

      Bird number two nearly died of the clap and thus he finally repented, entering seminary on his way to an abbreviated term in the ministry.

      Bird number one hit the lottery, bought himself a new beamer and drove like a complete asshole.


                                                             ***************

My Father’s Orchard

     This Saturday afternoon I clambered into several of the many apple trees in my father’s orchard. It’s what I’ve done for some consecutive Saturdays, to do something good and as much rewarding. Now that the weather is warmer it’s not at all unpleasant; there's a steady cool breeze from the west and the warm spring sun in my eyes when I look up to make the next selective pruning cut. The sweet sounds of songbirds are everywhere. Several large hawks pass overhead, scouting for prey. Dad quips that he hopes they won’t catch the Easter bunny. 
     Writing isn’t what I do to earn my daily bread, at least not yet. Neither is pruning apple trees, but if I had to do it as a part of my living, for sure I could do a lot worse. 
      Fruit growers surely must know they are artisans. They are also farmers of a sort, relying on a good annual crop. They plan their pruning, fertilizing and spraying schedules to coordinate with the weather and the seasons, which vary each year. Spring may come a little late as it has this year, or early, almost certain to be followed by damaging frost if the buds have responded to the warmth. Apple trees are amazingly resilient, but there are limitations when it comes to spring frost. 
      Pruning isn’t at all as easy to learn as one might think. It isn’t just cutting away the thick watersprouts, or “suckers” that has to be done. The amount of new wood a full-size apple tree puts forth in a single growing season is tremendous. Any single new-growth frond that wasn’t shortened slightly, or “headed back,” after one year has forked off into two or three useless watersprouts that probably have crowded their way into other branches. And thinning branches is nothing like cutting hair. Proper thinning is a measured and careful process tempered by an understanding of what configuration will produce the best and largest fruit, with room around the apples to permit sun-ripening. Buds that point downward are headed in the wrong direction, as are buds that point straight upward. Those that will bear and support an apple have sprouted to either side, and there are usually too many of those for the branch to support the weight of so many apples. So it’s a selection process, a hard look at the distribution of branches, and an experienced snip to help prevent overgrowth during the coming season. 
     And this is just about the pruning, not the subsequent thinning of fruit to prevent having too many apples so that they’re undersized. Or about the safe application of pesticides to prevent a myriad of minor maladies, such as apple “rust,” powdery mildew or scabbing that render an apple unsalable. Some years, for every whole apple that goes out for sale, two or three others are consigned to the bushels of “seconds” that will be processed for applesauce, canning or cider. 
     I don’t do all of this, I just know all of this because my father knows it. I grew up amid these fruit trees. Like any outdoor enterprise, some dedication to the end result is required to make you come out into the cold while the buds are still dormant, to try to get a jump on the process. 
     Dad’s orchard isn’t a commercial enterprise anymore. Dairyman, nurseryman, fruit grower, that’s my father. The orchard is the focus of his retirement, and I’d like to see him continue it for as long as he’s happy doing it. So I get out there with him when I can and do as much of the high work as I am able get to, before he does it. I have to be quick, because Dad doesn’t fool around. 
     There are many deer that are resident in the area, so deer damage to apple trees is a major problem. Some of the best and easiest apples to pick might have grown near the perimeter of each tree, but the deer see to it that they don’t. “Pruning apple trees changes your appetite,” Dad observed. “I feel a growing need for a venison burger.”
     He has lots of orchard-based wisdom to offer as well, some of it a bit of stretch. “Take off your hat and throw it at the tree,” he tells me. “If it doesn’t go all the way through, you’re not done.” 
     But it’s also true, once you know what you’re doing you kind of stop thinking about it, almost to the same degree as shifting gears when you drive. You just do it. That’s when the rewards begin, and that’s the source of my last paragraph. 
     Pruning apple trees is good for the soul. It provides time to reflect on the challenges you’re faced with in the world beyond the orchard, an opportunity for introspection, time to think about what you’re doing and to imagine what you could do. It isn’t just me. My father agrees. 
      Thank you, Dad. 

Nothing is Ever Forever

    I won't ask you to get out of your comfortable chair. Just imagine yourself stepping outside and looking around. If you see mountains, it wasn't always that way. If you don't, it wasn't always that way either. Water? It used to be dry land. Dry land? Water.
        You hear this "forever" stuff from people all the time, at weddings, in pop music, on the street if you're listening. You may have heard it or said it yourself. "I will love you forever." "You and me, forever." I suppose it sounds better than "I will love you for a really long time." But use of the word "forever" is truly misplaced. Because nothing at all is forever.
        You name it, folks. Mountains, plains, species, love, life, livelihood. Certainly, youth.
        Get ready, loosen up, think about who you really are. Change is always on the way. Delta-current reality = a constant.
        Depending on whether you know what's coming and how you feel about your current situation, maybe it can't come quickly enough. Then again, maybe the change that comes won't be the one you were looking for.
        But for most of us, whatever sort of cash stream may be feeding us or the relationship that seems to make life worth living, is often in reality, hanging by a thread. An executive or political decision from somewhere else can end the economic health of an area or of a whole city. People die in accidents, or the inevitable changes that happen as people experience life events can also change minds, about who and what things are important, changing in turn the lives of others, often drastically.
        Where I live, people tend to complain about the weather. They say: "If you don't like the weather here, just wait a minute." They believe it's too changeable. I don't think the weather here is bad at all. Hurricanes don't make it inland this far, tornadoes of any size touching down anywhere in the state would be big news. But observing weather is a lesson in life of sorts, because with weather, everything is affected by everything else. It's the same with just about everything, as it turns out.
        So, say something happens, and you've suddenly got a huge problem that you didn't have yesterday. The only thing that will bear you up will probably be your own personal strength. Have you exercised it lately?
        I would be very surprised if there's anyone out there at all who would be virtually unaffected by a revelation that no one actually cares about them, or worse. You just haven't lived until someone tells you something far worse than simply "You ain't shit." Yeah, I've been made to feel that way. Fortunately I've learned that no one has the right to do that to anyone. "Adversity builds character." Crap. It isn't necessary to belittle people to justify your decisions. If you're gonna do it, do it and shut up about it. Live and let live.
        Not so long ago, I came to a very startling realization. I'd thought for some time that I really didn't like people. Maybe I didn't, I don't know for sure and it no longer matters, as I've discovered the reverse is true. It turned out that what I have a problem with isn't people, the problem is leadership, or the lack thereof. The influential, capable self-serving put people in power and we are left out of it. Period.
        But I digress. Take care of yourself, if you don't know how, ask others, work on it, until you find out how. If no one else seems to care about you, you are simply mistaken. It isn't so. Friends of any kind are of great importance.
        And even friends aren't necessarily forever.

Day One: SparkleTown

Day One of my Blogging Experiment: SparkleTown

       I really don't know if it was just another of the strange things that are presently going on in my life, or if this phenomenon was completely real. I'm kidding of course, it was genuine, but honestly, at the same time, surreal. I've never seen anything like it. Ever. All I can say is the sun was well above the mountains as I headed out at 7:50 this morning. I took note of the time because I plan to duplicate my exit-time tomorrow in hope of seeing it again.
      The highway is cut into the top of a high ridge. The nearest town is laid out in the valley below as if you were viewing it from an airplane. However today, the town and the automobiles far below me absolutely sparkled. Sparkled! In broad daylight...white-light flashes, apparently from everything with glass - the motion of my car was no doubt a large part of the effect. I think it had to be that the sun was at the perfect height and angle at that time, angle of incidence equals angle of reflection, so that the directly reflected sunlight was coming right at me. But my little town, not necessarily so pretty in any other kind of light, looked more like Tinseltown than does Tinseltown. Or it might have resembled the hometown of Tinkerbelle (I'm pretty sure she doesn't live there). 
      As this is a lunchtime blog-burst and may never be repeated, I'll stop there. I haven't been writing much lately because of the aforementioned strangenesses, and this is a break-out effort. Not to mention, it was totally indescribable.
                                                                                                                                               -BT