Ghost Orchards and Greenport

It is rare since moving to New York that we have a car, but today we did and we drove to the Greenport Conservation Area just north of Hudson to enjoy the miraculously above-freezing weather.  It was quiet and gorgeous and just exactly what we needed.  We encountered only one other person on the trails but an inordinate amount of dog shit.

Beautiful.

If only dogs could read.

I've mentioned before that I have trees en route for our little future farming gardening operation at the pool house on School House.  Some of those trees are listed in a book by Rowan Jacobsen called Apples of Uncommon Character.  I curled up with Apples tonight, along with a glass of Pomponette, the most beautiful wine imaginable.

Tell me that's not the most beautiful beverage you've ever seen.

There is a passage in the forward that had me crying like a baby.  John Bunker of Fedco Seeds is notorious for seeking out "lost" apples, and one such apple was the Fletcher Sweet.  From Apples:

One of Bunker's best finds was the Fletcher Sweet, which he knew originated in the Lincolnville area.  In 2002, he met a group from the Lincolnville Historical Society.  They had never heard of the apple, but they knew of a part of Lincolnville called Fletchertown, which, like so many other old villages in northern New England, had since been reclaimed by the forest.  The society posted a note in the local paper saying it was looking for an old apple called a Fletcher.  A seventy-nine-year-old named Clarence Thurlow called the paper and said, "I've never heard of a Fletcher, but I know where there's a Fletcher Sweet."

Thurlow led Bunker to the dirt intersection that had once been the heart of Fletchertown, pointed to an ancient, gnarled tree, and said, "That's the tree I used to eat apples from when I was a child."  The tree was almost entirely dead.  It had lost all its bark except for a two-inch-wide strip of living tissue that rose up the trunk and led to a single living branch about eighteen feet off the ground.  There was no fruit.  Bunker took a handful of shoots and grafted them to rootstock at his farm.  A year later, both Clarence Thurlow and the tree died, but the grafts thrived. 

Mr. Bunker has since returned Fletcher Sweets to Lincolnville and anyone can purchase their own shoots (scions) for grafting from Fedco Trees.  Additionally, you can indulge almost any antique apple curiosity at Trees of Antiquity, an absolute favorite tree source (and resource). 

The beauty and magic of heirloom seeds and antique trees is that they are relics pregnant with potential; little living artifacts. Possibly less individual than a painting or a song, but a little piece of someone's soul lives on.  If ghosts had gardens old apples are what they'd grow.

I want to write more about the trees I've ordered but I have an early (and probably awful) morning planned for tomorrow.  I need to buy a car but am burdened by a total lack of male genitalia.  This unfortunate dearth of a penis on my part somehow renders all car salespeople absolute dipshits.  I can't think of anything I'd like to do less right now, but carshopping has to be done and I'm a little in love with this Fiat even though it's doubtful I'll even fit inside.  We'll find out tomorrow!