_

They say that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.  But since I didn't, I planted some today.  The only fruit trees that came with our property were a few quince thickets and a sun-starved crabapple.  (Though we continue to benefit from Vernon and Edith's asparagus bed, raspberry patch and rhubarb.)  A few years ago I planted a Saturn peach and Jonathan apple.  Then a Macoun apple, a couple of cherry trees (one since badly trimmed by the deer), a black walnut, and I've nurtured a volunteer mulberry tree.  Today I planted a stand of hybrid plum (seven saplings planted so their branches will intermingle), a Dolgo crabapple, and a witch hazel.  Still waiting for their place are another crabapple, three elderberries and a shagbark hickory.  If the hickory survives the deer and rabbits, it should produce nuts around 2053, well before my ninetieth birthday.  So there's that.

_