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in the apple orchard

One of the spaces I loved the best on my grandfather’s farm was the apple orchard. It was a small orchard, perhaps twenty trees. I have never seen it in spring when the apple blossoms are in bloom, in fall when the trees are laden with fruit, or in winter when the stark bones of the trees are visible. But I knew the orchard in summer, when the green canopies of the trees shed thick shade over the meadow grasses beneath.

an apple orchard in August

In summer, the orchard was usually a private space. The farm yard could be bustling with people and animals, but the orchard was set apart. It was a still room of dark and dapple.

At the edge of the orchard was a green swing chair. It was a braced frame with two benches, facing one another and suspended for swinging. Four people could sit in comfort and sway genteelly to and fro. Or a lone child could pump vigorously back and forth until one side of the frame lifted high with each upward swing and gave a satisfying lurch on its return. I, of course, would never have done such a thing.

When I wasn’t pushing the swing to its limits, I was climbing apple trees, one in particular. Its main side branch was as thick as its trunk and jutted out parallel to the ground. A little jump and you could sit on it like a chair. Swing a leg across and you had a horse. Stand on it and you were in the crow’s nest of a sailing ship. Sit down again, lean against the trunk and you had the ideal perch for reading the afternoon away.

an apple orchard in spring (photo by G. Tims)

The orchard was usually a private space. But on Family Reunion Day, it was the focus of the festivities. Big tables covered with white cloths were assembled in a line. Enough chairs were unfolded for every person in our very large family. Cars turned in at the driveway and claimed a spot in the farm yard. Cousins rolled from the cars and were soon climbing and swinging in the orchard. The table gradually filled with a conundrum of casseroles, bean pots, roasters and platters.

After the eating was done, wire hoops went up for a game of croquet. My Dad loved croquet and would show me all the tricks – how to get through the starting hoops in a single turn and how to ricochet off the goal post. He also showed me how to bump up against the ball of another player and send their ball flying out of bounds on the next turn. Armed with my learning, I gripped my croquet mallet, certain to win. And realised my brothers and sister and some of the cousins had some strategies of their own!

After the Reunion was over and the last car was waved from the driveway, I was left alone in the orchard and it seemed more empty and silent than before.

I would love to return to the apple orchard on my grandfather’s farm and read a book in my tree one more time. Are you ever too old to climb an apple tree?

dapple

the worn blanket flung

over the bough

of the apple tree

is an old woman

she hugs the limb

reaches for a branch

or an apple

barely beyond

the crook

of her fingers

she would dare

to set her foot

on the branch

and the next

step up

put the orchard

below her

rise above

the canopy

the valley

the meander of the river

feeble

she waits

in the dapple

clings to the branch

endures the tremble

delays the fall

Published as: ‘dapple’, 1998, Green’s magazine (Autumn 1998) XXXVII (1)

(revised)

© Jane Tims

Written by jane tims

August 9, 2011 at 6:26 am

Posted in above the ground, my grandfather's farm

Tagged with apple orchard, canopy, climbing trees, croquet, family reunion, nature, orchard, poetry, summer on the farm, swing chair

competing with the squirrels #1

thriving on the roof

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Our wood shed is almost thirty years old and its roof has never been re-shingled. This summer, perhaps it is trying to communicate with us.

the right amount of soil, the right amount of sun

Just above the wood shed is a white pine. Each year it sheds some of its needles and these land on the roof. Over the years, they have gradually built up, forming a kind of compost. This year, a dusting of seeds found hold, sprouted and are thriving! The roof is still keeping the contents of the wood shed dry, although we expect a vigorous root to break through any time.

Sometimes, we find a space to grow and thrive where it is least expected.

thriving on the wood shed roof

Written by jane tims

August 6, 2011 at 5:38 pm

Posted in above the ground, where plants grow wild

Tagged with green roof, nature, roof, roof garden, shingles

‘niche’ above the ground

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Around us are spaces so familiar, we don’t pay attention to them anymore. I remember this when I walk in the woods near our house. On the ground, at my feet, are layers of leaves from last autumn, the carpet of mosses, the plants of the understory.

And then I remember to look up and see the space above me.

This space is the realm of the trees. It is a space shaped by their canopies, the needles of the Balsam Fir and White Pine, the leaves of Red Maple, and the dead branches and twigs of the spruce. Most of the trees reach upward, roughly perpendicular to the ground. They stand together, parallel, the masts and rigging of a sailing ship. Others have succumbed to decay and gravity and wind, and have fallen. Their trunks make diagonal slashes through the spaces above and leave gaps in the canopy.

snowshoe trail and sap bucket on maple

These are spaces I cannot access, since my tree-climbing days are over. But I can move there, briefly, in winter. When the snow builds on the ground, it lifts me into the trees. I am reminded of this when I see the empty tap holes in the trunks of the maples along the trail. These are the holes left behind when we pull the taps at the end of maple syrup production in the spring. When we collected the sap, the taps were about three feet above the surface of the snow, so we could access them easily. Now, snow gone, the tap holes are above my head. Our snowshoe paths were elevated into the space above the ground. One winter the snows were so high, we had to trim the branches along the trail. Next summer we could look up and see our winter path, traced by the absence of branches in the space above our heads.

There is no soil up there in the above ground space, but there are many species who occupy this challenging ‘niche’. White-throat sparrows sing “I love Canada, Canada, Canada” from the tree tops, ghostly grey spruce budworm moths flicker through the canopy, and the lichen Old Man’s Beard (Usnea subfloridana) droops from the dead branches of the older conifers.

Usnea subfloridana Stirt. is a lichen often found growing on old and stressed trees in coniferous woods. The common name, Old Man's Beard, refers to the matted, stringy appearance of the lichen, hanging in clumps from tree branches. Lichens are made up of two species, an algae and a fungus, living together symbiotically.

Old Man’s Beard is my favourite space-maker in the canopy. It hangs, light as thistledown, gathering the moisture it needs from the fog and rain, absorbing nutrients from the air, creating a home for insects and tiny spiders in need of shelter. It paints the spaces with strokes of palest green.

Old Man’s Beard transforms the spaces it occupies. On the road between Saint John and Fredericton (New Brunswick, Canada) is a well-known picnic site and escarpment, called Eagle Rock. The climb above the parking area is steep, but at the top of the cliff the terrain flattens in an old growth of spruce and fir. The ground is thick with reindeer lichen, Cladina rangiferina and Cladina arbuscula, and the trees are draped in Old Man’s Beard. The effect is a frosted forest, as though these spaces were eternally in winter. And I am lifted into the ‘niche’ above the ground.

Next time you are outside, look up. What is in the space above you? What are its qualities? How does it shape your life?

Old Man’s Beard

Usnea subfloridana Stirt.

you and I

years ago

forced our ways

bent through the thicket

of lichen and spruce

Usnea

caught in your beard

and we laughed

absurd!