Today would have been a perfect pruning day except that the wind was blowing with March-like gusto making the conditions less than optimal. Still it was fun to be in the orchards. I spent all day up at Finley Lane pruning. Cammy joined me for the morning and attended to one of our Collie’s injured foot in the afternoon. We’ve still got another week or two of pruning, but most of it is now complete.

I spent a chunk of time consolidating prunings into piles throughout the orchard. In May we’ll borrow a chipper from a generous neighbor and chip brush for a day or two. It’s a big job, but all those chips go back into the orchard as fertilizer for the future. It’s that circle.

One of the Easter highlights yesterday was the return of a pair of wood ducks (Aix sponsa) to the pond in front of the house. We hadn’t seen them in several years since they were driven away by our farm ducks who thought the pond belonged to them. It was great to have them back. A few years ago I even built them a cabin on the edge of the pond—correct dimensions and everything—but they apparently wanted more privacy than our front yard. (Who would blame them?) Perhaps now that the vegetation has filled in more along the edge of the pond, our little wood duck cabin will be more hidden and more desirable. We can hope.

By late afternoon the wind had subsided, and the sky was perfectly clear as I packed up the ladders and tools and headed back to the house. Whatever heat there had been in the air was gone, and the evening chill was already descending. Somewhere up in the clear sky, high above the apple trees and the wood ducks, the spaceship Artemis II was circling the moon. On radio the newscasters say that the astronauts are now farther away from Planet Earth than humans have ever been. Of course, we know different. Just ask Sun Ra and his Arkestra.