I planted three fig trees three years ago, knowing that they would not produce fruit for three years and that it would probably take at least that long for us to have a regular presence on the farm. We had no easy way of watering them until very recently, and so I would take empty gallon jugs to the nearby pond and fill them with water and walk them over to the trees, a tedious job. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered them violated, trampled and gnawed upon, most likely by the elk herd. I was despairing and about to give up, but decided instead to stake them, wrap chicken wire around their bases and stack logs around one of them, hoping that it would at least deter the wildlife from that one, and save it. I could buy figs at my favorite Seattle grocery store, it's not that. It's symbolic; the struggles to get this farm going have been huge and the fig trees were a sort of gauge. "We have a fig!" I texted Phil when the first bulbous fruit appeared this spring. One became ten on this tree and tomorrow we are finally breaking ground on the homesite. "Is that huge excavotor coming down the road for your septic?" Andrea texted me as I was shopping at Costco in Seattle and she was at the farm observing. "Who knew a hole in the ground would be so exciting," she added when I confirmed that tomorrow morning we start some real developtment on Lot 19. Faith
I planted three fig trees three years ago, knowing that they would not produce fruit for three years and that it would probably take at least that long for us to have a regular presence on the farm. We had no easy way of watering them until very recently, and so I would take empty gallon jugs to the nearby pond and fill them with water and walk them over to the trees, a tedious job. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered them violated, trampled and gnawed upon, most likely by the elk herd. I was despairing and about to give up, but decided instead to stake them, wrap chicken wire around their bases and stack logs around one of them, hoping that it would at least deter the wildlife from that one, and save it. I could buy figs at my favorite Seattle grocery store, it's not that. It's symbolic; the struggles to get this farm going have been huge and the fig trees were a sort of gauge. "We have a fig!" I texted Phil when the first bulbous fruit appeared this spring. One became ten on this tree and tomorrow we are finally breaking ground on the homesite. "Is that huge excavotor coming down the road for your septic?" Andrea texted me as I was shopping at Costco in Seattle and she was at the farm observing. "Who knew a hole in the ground would be so exciting," she added when I confirmed that tomorrow morning we start some real developtment on Lot 19.