Today in the orchard
We woke up this morning to a very different world than we inhabited yesterday when the woods and the fields and the orchards were entirely white and the driveway was a ribbon of ice. In came the waves of rain and the intense gusts of wind. The temperatures, that recently had not been above zero at dawn, nibbled 50F. Big trees were down along Rte 3 including several all the way across. The road crews had not yet arrived and getting home turned into an adventure. (It might not have been the best day for driving.) This morning the white world had gone. One plus was a very walkable (and drivable) road. No cleats needed on the boots just yet.
The apple trees probably survived OK. It wasn’t too warm for too long. By this morning, the temperatures had settled back down into the low 20’s. The trees are into consistency. In the summer, they’re happy with the warmth. But not now. In the winter, they want it cold. Tomorrow, on the solstice, I’ll walk all the orchards. The ground is now a bare mat of stiff, frozen grass and the walking is easy. I’ll be looking for broken branches or—even worse—uprooted trees. I’ll check all the fences for blowdowns. (That wind was powerful.) I’ll wish the orchard well on the shortest day of the year and say good-bye for one last time before the real cold sets in. Bring it on.
Good-by and Keep Cold (1923) by Robert Frost
This saying good-by on the edge of the dark
And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm
All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.
(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call
I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)
I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(We made it secure against being, I hope,
By setting it out on a northerly slope.)
No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
"How often already you've had to be told,
Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below."
I have to be gone for a season or so.
My business awhile is with different trees,
Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,
And such as is done to their wood with an ax—
Maples and birches and tamaracks.
I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard's arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
But something has to be left to God.