Today in the orchard
The shortest day
The sun comes up but won’t stay long;
The skies are cold and partly gray;
The snow is gone:
I won’t delay;
Call it work or call it play:
I want to be outside.
The ground is bare,
I walk all the way
around the orchard fences.
There may
be blow-downs from the recent storm:
Two stray broken fir trees (Abies balsamea)
lay
precariously,
half in half out.
They can stay
there for now;
That’s Okay.
I’ll get the saw tomorrow.
Oh, and by the way,
I also want to say,
I finished up our scionwood inventory;
Clipboard, pencil and chilly fingers;
Then I closed in the chickens,
(Check the hay for eggs, just in case)
It’s nearly dark when I come back to the house
Where we set up another Fir, this one in the living room.
I cut it yesterday
in the BRC, behind one of the two young Blake trees,
by the compost piles, beyond the Cray
which, by the way,
may actually be the real Nutting Bumpus:
(We should check the DNA.)
It was dark when I lit the fire and let the dogs in.
I don’t think they noticed the tree.