Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Clouds of pink & white

It's the most beautiful time of year.
The trees are covered with clouds of pink & white blossoms.
These are the first to bloom - Patterson apricots.
All the apricots, peaches, nectarines, & plums are blooming - some have just broken bud &
 others are in full glory.
It snowed in the mountains yesterday, so if you look closely you can see the fresh snowfall in the background.
When the weather is warm enough, the bees are buzzing around, thousands to each tree.
So very soon they will have done their work, the flowers will fall off, & tiny fruits will appear.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Planting new trees

We just planted 39 new trees!  Here's my husband Jack Brian planting one of the new plums.  We removed some of the older trees to make room.  The first planting was in 1993 & we'd never moved any out before.  It was more than time...trees have a definite life span.  We planted 20 plums, divided between Santa Rosa & Satsuma, & 6 peaches - a new late variety called Late Alamar.  The rest were assorted peaches & apples as well as 2 figs.  Now we just have to wait 3 years until they are mature enough to bear fruit.  One of our pilots said he could already taste the figs!