I like to think that the major annoyances in life can’t ruffle my feathers. My Grandma Hommel used to express her frustrations or anger with the term “I was fit to be tied.” And I can’t remember the last time I heard someone declare they were “hot under the collar.”
Last week I was all three. I was walking around “fit to be tied,” and “hot under the collar,” with unruly, ruffled feathers. I wasn’t feeling very Christian.
And I am the first to admit, my reaction was simply unbecoming of a refined, courteous, gracious, woman as I am. (In full disclosure: No one has ever described me as being refined.)
The ruffled feather dilemma emanates from the fact that I simply have expectations, hopes and dreams.
Dreams sparked in 2016 by being enamored by the espaliered apple trees in Mettawa Manor Gardens, among a 15-acre prairie on 65 acres of land owned by Bill Kurtis, the television journalist and announcer for NPR’s news comedy/quiz show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”
I suppose the dreams were also ignited in 2015 on another Indianapolis Hosta Society bus trip when we visited the gardens of the late crime novelist, Sue Grafton, known for her alphabet series of mystery novels. Grafton’s husband Steve Humphrey gave us a personal tour — and I was mesmerized by the espaliered apple trees.
I just realized a theme of garden visits, when recalling the espaliered Kieffer pear and Gala apple trees at P. Allen Smith’s Moss Mountain Farm in Arkansas last summer.
Of course, the first espaliered fruit trees I set my eyes upon were at George and Martha Washington’s Mount Vernon in their food garden on one of my daughter’s junior high field trips around 2004.
So you can see how incorporating my dreams of an espalier orchard in my Johnson County garden have evolved. As my nephews Eli, Isaac and Drew helped me prepare the planting area early in spring in the perfect location, I began counting my apples before they were ripe.
Me: “Hey guys, won’t it be nice that we can come pick an apple if we get hungry after a swim this summer?”
Them: “Sure.”
I’m fairly certain I saw 8-year old Drew’s eyes brighten.
I excitedly explained that the espaliered apple trees are actually an ancient agricultural practice of growing fruit flat on a fence or stone wall by pruning and tying branches to a frame.
I’m sure I may have appeared to them as the “crazy plant aunt” when I proclaimed with way too much exuberance, “Each of these three-tier espalier trees has six different apple varieties coming off of each of the six branches — on one tree we’ll have Red Delicious, Red Gravenstein, Yellow Delicious, Braeburn, Gala and Fuji apples.”
My dreams of my nieces and nephews running up the hill from the pool to pluck an apple from the mini-orchard were becoming nearer.
Until the doe next door had a baby born two weeks ago. The doe I watched in awe nurse her newborn from my office window. The same doe who never eats any of my hostas. Well she ruffled every single one of my feathers by eating every single developing apple and most of the leaves from my espalier AND columnar apple trees. To the nubs.
Obviously, I’m not talking to my neighbors right now. Not until they apologize and promise to leave the apple trees alone. Meanwhile, I’m walking around hot under the collar and shaking my head every time I pass the new orchard.
This too shall pass — maybe.
Janet Hommel Mangas grew up on the east side of Greenwood. The Center Grove area resident and her husband are the parents of three daughters. Send comments to [email protected].
