Earl and I hit Spokaloo for appointments today. I saw my GP, and got my eyes tested. MS can lead to all kinds of eye problems, so it's good to get checked periodically. Plus my bifocals are six years old. So now I have a new prescription for lenses that I'll fill when I have the bucks, and a good report on the health of the old eyeballs. I left with pupils the size of saucers, squinting into the outrageously bright afternoon.
We stopped by the Ancestral Home and gathered some prunings (or "scions") from the three apple trees that C. planted there 25 years ago. I'll try grafting the scions onto new rootstocks from Burnt Ridge nursery in Onalaska, on the coast. My friend Jim, from the garden club, gave me a lesson in apple-tree grafting last spring, but none of mine survived. Jim is an apple evangelist, like Johnny Appleseed. He plants them, gives them away and teaches people how to prune and care for them. Did you know apple seeds when planted revert to tiny sour varieties, so all apple trees have to be grafted? And the rootstock determines the size of the tree, but the grafted bit determines the variety of apple? So a Honeycrisp seed would grow a tree full of small sour fruit, but a Honeycrisp branch grafted onto a dwarf rootstock would grow into a dwarf tree with Honeycrisp apples? Jim and his friends in the Graft and Corruption Squad travel around taking scions from old apple trees on homesteads, and give the trees new life. Pretty cool.
Earl and I were hungry, so we lowered ourselves to eating Burger King fishwiches. Well, I lowered myself. I've seen him eat even nastier things. Can't remember the last time I had fast food. Long time. Didn't kill me right off.
We arrived home knackered in late-afternoon sunshine, and C., bless her heart, unloaded the car.
One egg today.
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