Travel Mercies and Orchard Trees

The Lord woke me at 4:07am. The alarm was supposed to go off at 3:50am and didn't. That 17 minute delay meant that I arrived at the airport and walked onto the plane. No wiggle room, but a little extra sleep. Travel mercies.

On the second leg of the trip, 3 1/2 hours, my heart sank. I was in the middle seat, between a shrinking man and an irate large lady, with a tall, sturdy 21-month-old lap baby who had slept enough and was ready for action. But, amazingly, across the aisle was a woman with no one in the two seats next to her. She issued a general invitation to anyone who needed more space, and I jumped at the opportunity.

It turned out that her daughter is a missionary in a Middle Eastern Country, and we had a pleasant trip talking about the food chain and how we came to know the Lord and hiking and such. She helped entertain Joe a bit, making a paper person out of a torn piece of paper and a boat out of a napkin. Travel mercies.

Back in Colorado: it's brown. There's no trees. The mountains have snow. It doesn't feel like nine months since I stepped into my parents' house. Joe and Natalia, his 12-days-older cousin, have been having a cheery visit, both being happy children.

Isaiah, when I talked to the boys this evening, said, "Guess what Dad saw today down in the woods: a koala, a bear, or a deer." Sadly, the answer was not a koala (which would have been a great surprise), nor a deer (which would have been obvious), but a bear. I suspect the bear will come after my bees. That would be a bummer.

Some time ago someone wondered how I chose the fruit trees I did. Good question. For the apples, I read a couple books. One highlighted fifty top varieties; the other mentioned a few varieties by name. I did my best to choose types that sounded good and ripen over a few months. I probably went overboard choosing about 30 varieties with less than 300 trees, but since i haven't tried many, it's hard to know what will be good. Maybe this is a test orchard, in a way. Semidwarf apples don't usually last much longer than a decade anyway.

For the rest, I asked the orchard what they would recommend. It's a challenge to read fruit grower catalogs, because most everything sounds so delightful, so it was good to have a grower pick ten plums and pears with a variety of uses (prunes, canning, fresh eating, unique appearance, good keeping). Since my tastebuds prefer sweet, the cherries and peaches are all for fresh eating, but not all of the cherries are super sweet. I guess some of them are Hungarian cherries, that have a good sweet-tart mix.

So if you find Hungarian cherries somewhere, try them. I hear they're good.