After producing flowers, then little round green berries (which I cut off and composted) some of the potato plants were looking a bit skanky: yellowing, shriveled leaves and just unhappy. I wondered if this was a signal to begin digging. Some explorations seemed to indicate it is still a little too soon for a really solid harvest. However I did have a lovely bowl of steamed new red potatoes, drizzled with toasted seasame oil and seasoned with dukkah, for supper.
Apricots are starting to show some colour, though the strong winds keep thinning the crop. I watch these closely, almost obsessively, alert for signs of bird interest.
When the time comes to intervene, I have little chiffon bags (the kind they sell for party favors) to tie around some so we can share: the voracious birds and me.
I have already seen Little Brown Birds emerging from the grapevine where bunches of flowers are slowly turning to fruit. Are they sampling and thinning the harvest already? Am I going to need to net the grapevines too? I do hope they are eating pestilential tiny insects and mites not the tiny grapes.
Pomegranates, on the front boundary, bear the brunt of the incessant wild and desiccating winds of this season.
They are standing strong however, looking healthy and still managing to set some fruit. Perfect desert fruit tree. I’m really looking forward to my first pomegranate harvest. Fingers crossed. These fruits are babes yet.
Figs, on the other hand, are not looking as promising as the other fruits. They seem a little desiccated. Missing something but I don’t know what.
All the while there’s the eerie, hot sunlight filtering through a smoke clouded, orange-red sky backdrop. The Black Fire, still burning wild and hot less than 20 % contained as of writing, sends up billowing clouds of smoke, making breathing and being calm hard at times.
The fires in New Mexico this season have drawn firefighters from across the country, including tribal wildland firefighters.
Recently I spotted a vehicle of the Navajo Hotshots, from Navajo Nation, this one out of Arizona.
Gratitude! Ahéhee!
