Home Orchard Society

Went to the meeting today. It was a great experience. I felt like I was among kindred spirits. Lots of fruit to view and taste.

Zillions of Apple varieties. All so much better than grocery apples.

These are the biggest. I don't need apples this big. They are fun to look at.

Grapes. Home grown grapes are fit for kings. People don't know what they are missing. Tasting many, I'm still convinced that grapes with seeds are superior to seedless grapes. Those tart tasteless things that pass for grapes in the grocery store should have a different name. They are not even close.

Chinese Haw / Shan zha. I didn't get a change to taste them. First time I've seen one. Second time might be on my own tree. Two years? Three?

Medlars/ I didn't get to taste these either. Another time. Later, other attendees told me they taste like spiced apple sauce.

Charlie

My best buddy. Snoring. He twitches in his sleep, once in a while. Just being there, he makes the studies, and take-home work, go better.

Oncidium hybrid

Orchid started blooming. Oncidium hybrid.

More Gingko photos

This week collected ginkgo seeds. Surprised and oddly excited to discover that several of the trees I thought were male, are really female. Maybe the last time I looked they had not reached tree puberty yet. This changes my hypothesis about this long row of trees. More than half were female. So they must be seedling raised, not grafts. Good.  There must be 10 female gingko trees in this treeway.

There's nothing about the tree's anatomy that tells us she's female.  Only the presence of the seeds below the tree, gives it away.

Another female ginkgo tree in the same treeway.

Ginkgo branches, laden with seed.  In my earlier days, I called these "fruit".  The look like fruit, are fleshy like fruit, and contain an inner seed like fruit.  But botanically, the derivation of the flesh is a different part of the seed bearing structure, so the fleshy part is the outer layer of the seed.  Confusing.

Pleased the camera took some nice pics this time.

Ginkgo fruit scattered on the ground.    Even with so many, I don't smell the butyric acid that bothers many people.  Unless I pick them up, and smell my fingers.  Then it's there.

Finches

Through the glass of the home office window. The little point-and-shoot camera lacks the crystalline clarity of the Nikon super duper SXYZ camera. For that matter, so does the glass. Its OK. The birds don't mind. Carpodacus mexicanus.