When Someone Else Wastes My Time

I know how to waste my time well enough, thank you. I don't need others helping me.

Most of my Saturday was spent wasted, even though I thought it was going to be a productive, enjoyable, educational day.

It started out with an early morning call with some coaching buddies of mine. That time wasn't wasted, it just started very early. I did have to leave the call earlier than usual since I had signed DH and myself up for a free class all about fruit tree pruning. We have 13 fruit trees in our back yard. Three more in the front if you count the ornamental plums which now seem to have real fruit (teeny tiny plums) by the thousands. Lining the driveway. Where we park our cars.

Anyway, we haven't had any of these trees pruned in the 4 years we've lived here. A classic case of procrastination mixed with the overwhelming cost of having that many trees professionally trimmed. (We did attempt to cut down a number of them. Once grew right back.) $500 to $1,000 can buy a lot of fruit. (By the way, please don't be alarmed to hear that we have cut down trees. We have over 30 trees on our property and a number were planted too close together or near the house. We're just trying to save the ones that can be saved!)

But in this last growing fruiting season, the big plum tree broke a number of its branches burdened with so many plums. All the trees are looking very neglected. If there was a social services for fruit trees we would have been hauled off in handcuffs long ago. We are bad tree parents.

I've tried reading about pruning. I always learn so much from reading. But you know, pruning is one of those visual things that I need to be shown. "This is a bud. This is where you cut. This is a terminal end. This is your finger. Don't cut it." Like that.

So when I saw that there was a free 2-hour fruit tree pruning demo in Santa Rosa, I thought my prayers were answered. (It was even held at a church!) I will not name the place or the teacher. He was very nice, doing this for free and was out on a very cold Saturday morning (38 degrees and quite clear) with about 50 (old and very old) gardening geeks. (Where are the young gardening geeks? Huh? Still in bed, I'm sure.) He could have been sitting in front of a warm fireplace sipping hot cocoa, cuddling with his wife with his loyal golden retriever at his feet and his children bringing him his slippers and newspaper. Oh wait, that's me.....:)

On with the story.

The setting was promising. A garden. With fruit trees. There was one right in front of me--a persimmon like I have. I was being tantalized with the thought of seeing this tree pruned right before my very eyes.

The first sign of things going wrong was when the instructor said "Before we start talking about pruning, I'd like to spend 10 minutes talking about planting a bare root fruit tree." OK, fair enough, I guess. The whole, "Let me tell you how to do it right from the very beginning" talk. Except I have no intention (in the next ten years anyway) of planting any more fruit trees! I have 13 of them for goodness sakes! I have been cutting them down! I have no room for more trees. That's like going to a class about sending your kid to college and the instructor telling you how to make a baby and raise it right so it will be smart enough to get its own scholarships instead of you having to figure out where you'll get the money to send it to Harvard. Or something like that. You get the idea.

And then 10 minutes turned into an hour. Yup, half the class was already over and we hadn't even seen one limb or branch or twig cut yet. Man, I was really needing to see some wood lopped. Bad.

But people kept asking him questions that had nothing to do with pruning. And he answered them. "So I have a 3 year old tree that was planted too deep. What can I do?" My answer,"Prune it!"

He finally walked over to the persimmon. Made a couple cuts and started using words like "Terminal cut" "headed" "lateral cut." Without giving a definition of those terms. Huh?

He didn't prune the whole tree. My hopes for seeing it pruned from beginning to end were dashed. We headed off to the grove where he said there were peaches and plum trees. Yeah! I have those, too. OK, maybe I'll learn more there.....

So, another hour in the orchard looking at a couple of trees. A couple more cuts. Someone did actually say "Could you show me how you would prune this tree?" Others nodded, yes, yes, please show us some pruning.

Well, a few more cuts. More talking. Not so much about pruning. The big hand and the little hand were both reaching for the sky right now. We cut our losses (ha!) and left. Shaking our heads.

Off to home where we had a few minutes to change clothes, eat lunch, and head off to a children's event at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts.

For another two hours of wasted time. Even DD was bored. I'll save that review for next time. Let's just say DG (Darling Grandma) got rooked out of $75 that could have been spent on a couple of nice bottles of champagne. Or two cases of Cooks.

Don't ever go see anything by the Imago players "mime" group.

The trees? I bought me a fancy schmancy pole pruner thingy at Home Depot. (Oh don't even get me started about trying to find gardening gloves at Home Depot. Aisle 30 my arse! Aisle 30 is at THE OTHER END OF A MILE LONG STORE from the the garden department.) I'm just gonna go make a bunch of terminal cuts, lateral cuts and head cuts and see what happens next summer.

If I've killed the trees then I can just cut them all down and plant a bunch of bare root trees, right?

'Cause I know how to do that!