apple trees, wildflowers and foxes

Outside my window are two apple trees I have watched over many years.  I don't know much about taking care of apple trees, and it shows.  I tried to learn at one point, but the reality is that I don't climb trees or want to spray chemicals.  And now, after 9 years of neglect, the trees have pretty much died.  It's time to have them cut down, which hurts me.  I have loved watching them season after season:  even when there were few apples.  The lightning bugs love to come and dance beneath those trees in June. Birds make their nests there, and a cacophony of bird song is proof of the fact.  I am a lover of trees.  But I am not an ambitious apple tree grower.  I am a selfish lover of trees.  I just love to walk or sit beneath them, hug them, touch their trunks, gaze at their dignity and feel myself part of them.  But caring for them mystifies me, and always feels beyond my ability.

Years ago I used to have a friend who pretty much just let his place grow wild.  Tall grass in the front yard (he was out in the country), trees and flowers and plants grew however they wished.  Weeds were loved too.  The only thing he would actively do about his place, was to get on his riding lawnmower and make some paths through the wild and tall grasses.  I loved to wander there, especially that little spot overlooking a small valley where he put a bench for sitting and thinking and watching.  A little fox lived below in the valley, and with enough patience, you could see it.


One of the things he said to me one day has always stayed in my head:  "People who plant flowers in rows confuse me." 


No offense to the gardener who plants things in rows.  But I agree with my friend.

You know it's interesting, how some folks need things in orderly rows to feel comfortable. Nice neat rows.   I've never felt quite comfortable in those places or with those people.  There is this wild creature in me that takes some patience to draw out, and when I do come out for a visit, well, I prefer tall grass and a mixture of flowers here and there.  I get really nervous when things are so civilized there isn't a place for things to simply "be."

Unfortunately, this wild streak doesn't a good gardener/apple tree grower make.