WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:07.599 There is a branch still green to day, that I 2 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:10.640 have pruned three times in a single season, or so 3 00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:15.240 I think. I sometimes catch myself garden snips poised, squinting 4 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:18.079 up into the haze of late summer, counting the leaves, 5 00:00:18.399 --> 00:00:21.600 three broad, one small, before the doubt comes in like 6 00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:24.760 a tide. Was it this branch or the one opposite? 7 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.559 Or neither? And I am mixing up my days. Funny 8 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:31.399 thing is I've tended these trees for so long I 9 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:34.600 could list every twist in their trunks from memory, every 10 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:37.679 hollow where a barn owl nested, or where the wind 11 00:00:37.799 --> 00:00:41.640 once cracked a limb in a midnight storm. Still the 12 00:00:41.759 --> 00:00:45.079 orchard finds ways to unsettle me, now more than ever. 13 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:49.079 Last month, in the coolness of an overcast Monday, I 14 00:00:49.159 --> 00:00:51.679 was making my first pass through the old King's Apple 15 00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:56.119 south slope by the tumbled and boundary stones tradition and 16 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:58.960 not just habit. That tree's been here as long as 17 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:02.719 the orchard fought odd years before I started. This was 18 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:06.400 the time for shaping, keeping the crown light. I studied 19 00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:09.840 each branch's angle, eyeing for the ones that crossed inward 20 00:01:10.120 --> 00:01:13.560 or bore too much there on the east side. A 21 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:16.959 healthy looking offshoot had grown too far out, pressing into 22 00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:19.519 the space of its neighbor. It boasted a hat of 23 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:23.200 shiny leaves and a trio of ripe apples. Nice specimens, 24 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:26.359 but crowding is the enemy of good fruit. So I 25 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:29.439 cut the branch clean, as one does, pausing to thumb 26 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:32.040 a rough patch of bark. Near where the limb joined 27 00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:35.040 the trunk. There was an odd little knot a scar 28 00:01:35.239 --> 00:01:38.079 like an eye, and one leaf torn sideways by wind. 29 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.000 I made a note in my battered journal. On the 30 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:44.319 way back to the shed, just briefly for my own memory, 31 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:49.000 removed healthy branch east Ky's Apple, three fruit not at base. 32 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:51.920 With a week's round of mowing and a school group 33 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.599 tour coming in, I didn't think much more about it. 34 00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:58.840 Routine brings comfort. If a man second guesses every cut, 35 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:03.159 he lives in a may of small regrets. Seven days on, 36 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:06.799 with a thermos and the gentle satisfaction of a deserted orchard, 37 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:10.599 I slipped between the rows again. My boots crunched over 38 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:14.680 fallen petals and crumbled stone. Passing the old King's apple. 39 00:02:14.919 --> 00:02:17.840 Something caught not my eye first, but a kind of 40 00:02:17.919 --> 00:02:22.280 internal pause, a snag in the pattern. I stood there, 41 00:02:22.439 --> 00:02:25.319 staring up at what should have been an empty patch. There, 42 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:29.759 opposite the missing branch jutted another offshoot, leaves arranged like 43 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:33.280 little green plates, three tight apples, gleaming in the slanted 44 00:02:33.319 --> 00:02:36.120 morning light. The very edge of the limb bore a 45 00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:40.240 ragged tear, mirroring the one I remembered trimming distinctive not 46 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:43.759 at the base. I found myself reaching out, tracing the 47 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:46.360 bark with the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. 48 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:50.120 Had I misremembered, had the cup been here? Not there? 49 00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:53.400 But my journal said east, and this was west, unless 50 00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:56.680 I'd written in haste or confused the bearings the twinter, 51 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:59.800 the last detail replication was stranger than my muddled mind 52 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:03.360 life to allow. I went home, mumbling about false memories, 53 00:03:03.479 --> 00:03:07.599 making a fresh note mirror branch, found w side, same features, 54 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:11.280 and left it at that. Curiosity at my age is 55 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:15.479 preferable to worry. But even so, that night, as the 56 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:19.240 breeze slipped through my kitchen window, I found myself thinking 57 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:22.000 of the orchard's way of slipping a trick beneath a 58 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:26.599 familiar routine. If you've spent your life inside a living history, 59 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:29.599 you learn to let oddities grow around you, like wild 60 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:33.360 violets in the grass. The orchard is not a uniform 61 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:36.159 quilt of trees spaced like rows on a paper grid. 62 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:38.639 It sprawls over the gentle hills at the foot of 63 00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:42.479 the sea, the air salted, the weather changeable, flowering times 64 00:03:42.520 --> 00:03:46.360 shifting year on year. The orchards old local legend makes 65 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:49.400 it one hundred seventy years, though nobody trusts the numbers. 66 00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:53.199 Maps from the eighteen sixties show it half its present size, 67 00:03:53.439 --> 00:03:56.120 but the boundaries are marked by like and studded stones 68 00:03:56.280 --> 00:03:59.960 that predate railroad times, even as the world outside grew 69 00:04:00.199 --> 00:04:05.240 and shrank. Apples, pears, plums, and an occasional suspect cherry 70 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:08.439 tree make up the backburn. There are tangles of brambles 71 00:04:08.479 --> 00:04:10.960 here and there, and at least one stubborn meddler that 72 00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:14.159 never fruits. The rose do not run straight, but curve 73 00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:17.920 in and out, following something older than geometry. The ground 74 00:04:17.920 --> 00:04:21.360 dips and rises, pools of shadows shifting across the grass 75 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:25.160 as morning tilts to afternoon. In May, the petals drift 76 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:29.839 like pink snow over the benches and old walking paths. Birds, 77 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:33.839 especially the blackbirds and jays, have their favorite spots, and 78 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:37.279 even local deer seem to prefer one winding lane near 79 00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:41.439 the northern edge. I've kept watch over this patchwork for decades, 80 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:44.879 not alone, though sometimes it feels that way. Before dawn 81 00:04:45.199 --> 00:04:49.040 or as the last sunset dies in late September, there's Pete, 82 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:51.600 my not so young apprentice. He hates when I call 83 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:54.920 him that broad shouldered, honest to a fault, with a 84 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:58.319 voice that carries through June fog. Pete likes to joke 85 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:01.079 that the trees know me better than he does. If 86 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:03.560 you leave Sam, they'll have to train me to talk 87 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:07.600 to the roots. Most days bring a regular tide of townsfolk, 88 00:05:07.959 --> 00:05:11.120 some older than the oldest pair, all eager for baskets 89 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:14.920 of fruit or a bit of shade. Missus Callahan in particular, 90 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:19.240 arrives most tuesdays walking cane, more for style than necessity, 91 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:24.120 cheeks like ripe plums. She brings gossip knits beneath blooming boughs, 92 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:27.480 and claims her grandfather planted the wrong apple tree in 93 00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:32.120 the southeast corner by secret design. Tourists come and go, 94 00:05:32.519 --> 00:05:36.120 especially for the annual blossom festival in spring. They ask 95 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:38.920 about the oddities while plum tree sprouts out of a 96 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:41.759 pair's roots. Here, why that ancient apple has a patch 97 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:44.920 of early yellow fruit while neighbors are weeks behind, Or 98 00:05:44.920 --> 00:05:48.000 why one bench is always wet. I've become used to 99 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:51.600 their questions. I answer as best I can. Some trees 100 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:55.639 have old grafts, others are sickly. Climate is strange here, 101 00:05:55.959 --> 00:06:00.560 micro climates everywhere. Half the time they seem so satisfied 102 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:05.000 with my modest shrugs and long winded theories. In the center, 103 00:06:05.079 --> 00:06:08.839 by the storage shed sits a battered, leather bound caretaker's journal, 104 00:06:09.079 --> 00:06:12.040 far older than I am. The earliest entries are in 105 00:06:12.079 --> 00:06:15.759 a hard slanted penmanship, dates fading out a century ago. 106 00:06:16.279 --> 00:06:19.680 I add my own scribbles, sometimes trivial, Which moa jammed 107 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:22.480 or who forgot to leave the gate latched? Sometimes a 108 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:25.560 list of wild flowers seen on the southern slope. Other 109 00:06:25.639 --> 00:06:29.120 caretakers before and after me have left only scattered notes, 110 00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:34.000 odd fruit, blighted trees, shifting shadows. I've never made a 111 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:37.439 habit of reading their pages, beginning to end, too much 112 00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:41.319 life a waiting outside, I suppose. But these days I 113 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:44.680 wonder if I should. If I had become a questioner 114 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:47.439 early in life, maybe I'd have become a teacher or 115 00:06:47.480 --> 00:06:51.839 a surveyor. Instead. My whole craft is patient, noticing the 116 00:06:51.959 --> 00:06:55.560 kind that makes neighbors assume your content, and a little slow. 117 00:06:56.279 --> 00:06:58.720 I like to say I'm steady, and most believe it 118 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:03.000 peat most of all. The strange thing is a man 119 00:07:03.079 --> 00:07:07.000 believes himself settled until a single moment breaks that certainty. 120 00:07:07.639 --> 00:07:10.680 For me, it was the next contradiction in a place 121 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:14.040 I thought i'd memorized, down to the soil's smallest pebble. 122 00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:18.560 Late July, the orchard nearly humming with insect life. I 123 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:21.560 was called to prune in the rookery zone, a name 124 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:24.920 passed down from my predecessor because crows used to cluster 125 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:29.160 there in the nineteen eighties. The trees here are untidy, older, 126 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:32.560 heavy limbed, a mess of suckers at their feet. One 127 00:07:32.600 --> 00:07:36.040 particular apple tree, a legacy of the early nineteen hundreds. 128 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:38.879 If the fading tag on its trunk spoke true, was 129 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:43.600 putting out an especially gnarled branch. It jutted outward, bark, 130 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:47.199 twisted limp, leaves marked with a spray of brownish spots, 131 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:50.920 as if a careless hand had flicked ink. I took 132 00:07:50.959 --> 00:07:53.600 my time with it, checking the angle and wrenching it 133 00:07:53.639 --> 00:07:58.360 off with practiced effort. The branch came down ugly and unmissed, 134 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:02.000 but for that peculiar pack, a single splotched leaf at 135 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.160 the end, and a crook like a shepherd's crook in 136 00:08:04.279 --> 00:08:07.680 mid curve. Thinking nothing much, I tossed it onto the 137 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:11.560 pile by the compost. A week later, rain had made 138 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:14.680 its lazy advance and the orchard was slick and full 139 00:08:14.680 --> 00:08:18.800 of puddles. I returned walking the same row, clipboard in 140 00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:22.560 hand to check for blight. Pete behind me was checking 141 00:08:22.600 --> 00:08:26.360 the smaller pears that rimmed the path. That's when I 142 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:29.199 saw it. A branch jutting out from a healthy, young 143 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:33.480 pear two trees down from the apple, same crooked sea shape, 144 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:36.639 same splotched leaf at the tip. The color was off 145 00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:40.039 pear green, not apple, but the pattern itself down to 146 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:44.320 a ridged bump near the base, was unmistakable. I snapped 147 00:08:44.320 --> 00:08:47.360 a photo on my blotchy phone, then called Pete over, 148 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:51.399 what's up, Sam? He squatted by the trunk, peering at 149 00:08:51.399 --> 00:08:55.720 the branch. That pear's got attitude. Look at the shape, 150 00:08:55.960 --> 00:09:00.639 Remember last week's apple. The branch I cut heat grinned, 151 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.679 the one that looked like a witch's finger. You think 152 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:08.080 this one's related the very image, But this is a pair, 153 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:12.120 he shrugged, plucking at the leaves. You sure you're not 154 00:09:12.200 --> 00:09:16.879 just seeing connections cause you're tired, he grinned a bit wider, unworried. 155 00:09:17.399 --> 00:09:20.200 Maybe these trees are showing off for you, or maybe 156 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:24.279 you're losing your touch. Unamused, I walked back and forth 157 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:28.240 between the stumps Apple here, new branch there. Both faced 158 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:31.200 the same direction, more or less. But what caught me 159 00:09:31.279 --> 00:09:33.799 wasn't just the similarity. It was the fact that the 160 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:37.679 new branch wasn't exactly replacing the one I'd pruned. It 161 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:41.240 was offset clockwise along the row, as if following the 162 00:09:41.399 --> 00:09:45.840 ark of the whole orchard. I think it's always clockwise, see, 163 00:09:46.039 --> 00:09:49.399 I told Pete, but he only laughed, clapping my shoulder. 164 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:54.759 Maybe the whole orchard runs on a different kind of clock. Boss. 165 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:58.480 That phrase stuck with me. At first. I enjoyed the joke, 166 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:01.480 but that evening, before all the sun could dry my boots, 167 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:05.080 I jotted a longer note in the caretaker's journal. Apple 168 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:09.080 branch sea pruned twisted shape right arrow. Similar appears next 169 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:13.039 week on pair one tree, clockwise pattern or oddity check 170 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:17.399 again systematic. I won't pretend I leapt at the chance 171 00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:20.600 to play detective. If you've watched plants for years, you 172 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:24.399 learn patience, but distrust patterns that seemed too neat. But 173 00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:27.399 after that, every time I made a cut or watched 174 00:10:27.399 --> 00:10:31.440 a branch fall, I tracked and I waited. The curiosity 175 00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:34.960 had its hooks in. From then on I kept a close, 176 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:39.679 even obsessive record. By August's height, I strapped colored tags 177 00:10:39.720 --> 00:10:42.679 to every branch. I removed each one, marked with a 178 00:10:42.759 --> 00:10:47.159 date and tree number. I took awkward photos hands trembling 179 00:10:47.440 --> 00:10:49.720 sun at the wrong angle, but enough to show the 180 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:54.679 teltal signs. Every morning, before the volunteers and townsfolk arrived, 181 00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:58.200 I'd loop around the rose and count here a notch 182 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:02.360 where I'd pruned. There a fresh branch or cluster, sometimes 183 00:11:02.440 --> 00:11:05.200 bearing the same kind of injury or flourish as the 184 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:08.320 one gone missing. And every time I plotted it on 185 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:11.879 a notepad map a rough sketch, trees numbered in the 186 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.200 order they wrapped around the shaded rise. It wasn't uniform. 187 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:20.519 Sometimes a replacement would skip over three trees or not 188 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:23.600 appear till the second or fourth week after the original 189 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:27.559 was cut. Once a patch of spotted leaves showed up, 190 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:30.000 not as a branch, but as a cluster of fruit, 191 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:33.519 unmistakable for the teltial bite mark of a squirrel I 192 00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:38.240 chased away the previous day. Other times, a removed, blighted 193 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:41.879 plum branch resurfaced, not on a neighboring plum tree, but 194 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:45.080 on an ancient apple, thin and odd, but still in 195 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:49.600 line with the row. The constant was its direction, every echo, 196 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:53.480 every mirror, always clockwise, as if the entire orchard ran 197 00:11:53.559 --> 00:11:57.240 on some unwritten schedule, each event tumbling forward with a 198 00:11:57.320 --> 00:12:02.440 patient precision. A handful of trees, especially the newest saplings 199 00:12:02.519 --> 00:12:06.480 or particularly old, brittle trunks, seemed untouched by the dance. 200 00:12:07.159 --> 00:12:11.120 I logged that too. I started keeping two diagrams, one 201 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:13.919 that showed the official orchard as the eye sees it, 202 00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:18.000 another layered with colored lines and circles, mapping the chain 203 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:22.120 of moving features. Every time I voiced a new finding, 204 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:27.240 Pete's response was playful skepticism. I guess the pears are 205 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:30.399 bared of being pears, he said once after I showed 206 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:34.240 him side by side photos. Maybe you should stop pruning. 207 00:12:34.559 --> 00:12:37.120 See if the whole place decides to put itself together 208 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:40.879 like a puzzle, I'd love if any one else noticed, 209 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:44.960 I grumbled. But the rest of our small staff, three 210 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:48.720 part timers, and an ever changing tide of horticulture students 211 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:53.240 only shrugged Orchard always has its odd seasons. Sam, you 212 00:12:53.399 --> 00:12:56.200 just look deeper than the rest, said one, meaning it 213 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.679 as a compliment or a gentle rebuke. I couldn't tell. 214 00:13:00.759 --> 00:13:04.120 It's funny. Nobody wants to find out their world is unstable, 215 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:08.080 especially when the stakes are so small. A branch here, 216 00:13:08.279 --> 00:13:12.799 a blossom there. But I could not drop the thread. Instead, 217 00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:16.159 I did what any old caretaker would. I dug deeper 218 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:19.200 in the walls of journals and archives and in the 219 00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:23.399 living memory of the town's oldest inhabitants. That was when 220 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:27.159 I started raiding the old caretaker's journal in Earnest, searching 221 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:30.240 for echoes of what I recorded. The handwriting in the 222 00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:34.440 nineteen twenties and thirties was elaborate pages filled with stories 223 00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:40.000 of frost, drought, and robust harvests beyond prediction. Occasionally I 224 00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:44.399 found gems north Row first apple swap with green pear 225 00:13:44.480 --> 00:13:47.879 by the well twenty first May no accounting for taste. 226 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:52.600 Nineteen fifty four star pattern blossom e tree gone found 227 00:13:52.600 --> 00:13:56.360 next fortnight, two trees right, same dewdrop on third petal. 228 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:01.240 Still no answer. Even less formal were the personal asides 229 00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:05.399 nettle patch lost re emerged by the memorial slab no 230 00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:09.960 use replanting In later years. Some entries simply trailed off 231 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:13.600 into size or rye resignation. The orchard is in motion, 232 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:18.440 let it dance. I compared every cryptic note with my own, 233 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:23.360 then went looking for older wisdom. Missus Callahan knitting and 234 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:27.799 spreading stories by the orchard's gait leaned in conspiratorially when 235 00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:32.519 I asked, oh, the pear blossom weeks, Yes, those. My 236 00:14:32.600 --> 00:14:34.919 aunt always said that if you napped beneath the biggest 237 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:38.159 apple tree and woke before noon, you'd swear the world 238 00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:41.759 had rearranged. Not just a child's trick. Seems to me. 239 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:45.000 You folks who work the rose keep moving the signs round, 240 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:47.960 and the trees keep obliging. I wouldn't put too much 241 00:14:48.039 --> 00:14:51.919 weight on it. Trees know what they know. Old mister 242 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:55.000 Haskins from up the lane was a harder nut. It's 243 00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:59.480 the ground, Sam always said, So something under there magnetic. 244 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:02.559 Maybe you dig deep enough and the stones under the 245 00:15:02.679 --> 00:15:05.879 orchard are set like a clock, each tugging things forward. 246 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:09.720 But folk don't like you talking that way. I sat 247 00:15:09.799 --> 00:15:13.080 with that idea, but wanted facts. I paid a visit 248 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:16.440 to the Historical Committee, a haphazard group of well meaning 249 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:20.039 towns folk chared by Linda, whose hobby, some say, is 250 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:22.679 keeping the notion of history alive in a place that 251 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:26.440 wants to forget. Linda, hair up in a careless bun, 252 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:29.559 produced a battered shoe box of post cards and seep 253 00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:33.840 your towned festival maps. These are from the Blossom festivals, 254 00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:37.120 mostly nineteen fifty and after, but a few older ones. 255 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:42.480 She smiled, seeing my attention. People circle the biggest, flashiest 256 00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:45.120 tree each year and write its name on the back. 257 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:48.639 See if you can spot a pattern. I sorted them 258 00:15:48.679 --> 00:15:52.039 by date, scanning for clues. Some named the same apple 259 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:55.159 tree for years, then abruptly skipped to a plum, then 260 00:15:55.159 --> 00:15:58.519 a pair on the opposite end. Even the photos blurred 261 00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:02.279 inexact documented not just changes in tree size or health, 262 00:16:02.559 --> 00:16:05.840 but in the actual geography from year to year. In 263 00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:09.279 one photo, the well bent pair stood behind a split rock. 264 00:16:09.600 --> 00:16:12.200 Two years later it was the apple, or so the 265 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:17.519 note claimed. Most townsfolk, when asked, dismissed my curiosity with 266 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:21.200 a cheerful tolerance. That's just how it is with the orchard, 267 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:25.399 said miss Wells, the school teacher. Every festival, it seems 268 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:29.159 the children get lost in a different turn. With each 269 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:32.200 new line of questioning, I began to realize how much 270 00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:35.480 of the Orchard's history rotated, not just through its living matter, 271 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:40.440 but through our memories and stories. Still that didn't satisfy 272 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:45.240 the cold, practical grounds keeper inside. I started tracing a 273 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:48.600 larger map from memory, overlaying each finding with the older 274 00:16:48.600 --> 00:16:53.639 photos and scribbled diagrams, leaves, blossoms, even the small clusters 275 00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:58.000 of stones. What emerged was hardly random. Week after week, 276 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:01.120 the details, the ones any one would notice if they 277 00:17:01.159 --> 00:17:05.319 looked closely, moved in a deliberate arc, always moving forward, 278 00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:08.359 never to the left, and never twice in the same place. 279 00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:13.160 Pattern or not. I needed more evidence. I threw myself 280 00:17:13.200 --> 00:17:16.640 into the hunt for a master explanation, something to tie 281 00:17:16.680 --> 00:17:20.440 together the living sprawl of this place. Linda had more 282 00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:24.480 than just postcards she'd inherited via some labyrinthine root, a 283 00:17:24.519 --> 00:17:27.920 box of blueprints and old festival programs in Among the 284 00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:31.119 faded pages were maps drawn in colored ink, showing now 285 00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:34.799 vanished beds of daffodils and scattered rose bushes. What caught 286 00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:37.880 my eye was a single, more recent page, nineteen seventy two. 287 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.680 It said, in neat script, the orchard divided into twelve sections, 288 00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:44.960 radiating out like hours on a clock. At the center, 289 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:49.960 a curious note hub, tree, origin, anchor. I compared this 290 00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:53.279 to my own living office map, and with journal entries passed, 291 00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:57.839 the echoes startled me. Major fruitings rotated from sector to sector. 292 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:00.839 On the three of the clock face, the first apple 293 00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:04.799 blossoms one spring. Two years later, the same richness appeared 294 00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:08.720 at the five, and so on the pear harvest earliest, 295 00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:13.079 then latest, then returning in a spiral. A new theory 296 00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:17.160 took hold, not simply odd branches or misplaced fruit, but 297 00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:20.039 the entire pattern of bloom and shadow, of health and 298 00:18:20.119 --> 00:18:24.680 memory was in motion, slow, patient, swirling, like the hands 299 00:18:24.680 --> 00:18:28.440 of a gentle old clock. I spent nights hunched over 300 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:32.279 the caretaker's journal, cross checking each clue against the calendar. 301 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:35.119 I came to notice that the years when the pattern 302 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:40.519 seemed to wobble from storms, drought, or even sabotage coincided 303 00:18:40.519 --> 00:18:44.559 with abrupt changes among the town's routines or festival roots. 304 00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:48.359 The hardest proof to ignore came at dawn, with the 305 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:52.079 dew silvering the grass. Walking from north to east, I 306 00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:55.640 saw how the air grew cooler, the smell of blossoms changed, 307 00:18:55.920 --> 00:18:58.839 and the direction of shade shifted not with the rising sun, 308 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:01.359 but with the hidden rising them of the orchard itself. 309 00:19:02.039 --> 00:19:04.599 A spot that once struck me with spicy winter green 310 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.839 in May was suddenly honey sweet, like a pair left 311 00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:11.599 too long in sun. I even started charting where the 312 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:14.720 morning dew settled, not just on grass, but on the 313 00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:19.359 stone benches and weathered boundary markers. Every week, the brightest 314 00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:23.160 shimmer trailed clockwise across the rows, shifting like the ark 315 00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:27.599 of a silent sundial. Every detail pointed to something deeper. 316 00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:32.079 The orchard itself, as an organism, not merely plants, but 317 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:37.680 lived memory and communal expectation, was quietly, persistently shifting itself 318 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:42.640 underneath our feet. It was a slow realization, and not comfortable, 319 00:19:43.039 --> 00:19:46.279 that my steady world, ruled by calendar and hand, was 320 00:19:46.279 --> 00:19:48.400 in fact afloat on a river. None of us could 321 00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:51.680 see that one could move forever in this place and 322 00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:55.200 always find the season the features. The very day's mood 323 00:19:55.240 --> 00:19:58.559 had slid one notch ahead. Or perhaps that we moved 324 00:19:58.839 --> 00:20:01.880 and the orchard kept its self still in some truer time. 325 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:06.839 When at last I voiced this, not without embarrassment, to Pete, 326 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:10.240 he whistled low, no longer laughing. Maybe it's not the 327 00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:14.119 tree's moving, boss. Maybe it's us following whatever keeps the 328 00:20:14.279 --> 00:20:19.440 orchard turning. Or maybe I said, quietly, the orchard itself 329 00:20:19.519 --> 00:20:23.839 is keeping time, and we're just its hands. That convinced 330 00:20:23.880 --> 00:20:26.880 me the anomaly was not an oddity, not a trick 331 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:31.119 of memory or biology, at least not solely, but a persistence, 332 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:35.200 an underlying order, running wider and older than a single person, 333 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.640 like a living clock, a clock that never told the 334 00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:43.240 same time twice, but always pointed forward. Still, there was 335 00:20:43.319 --> 00:20:47.160 more to know, and the knowledge, rather than closing my curiosity, 336 00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:50.680 only made it grow. I spent more nights than I'd 337 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:53.359 care to admit, hunched on a camp stool just outside 338 00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:57.599 the old shed, marker pens and diagrams unfurled, the caretaker's 339 00:20:57.680 --> 00:21:01.839 journal splayed open, with its spine cracking. There's a satisfaction 340 00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:05.200 that comes from careful notes, a kind of quiet ritual. 341 00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:08.839 But my certainty crumbled each time a new entry seemed 342 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:12.839 to shift. Even as my pen dried, forty years of 343 00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:16.319 routine couldn't touch what the orchard revealed, and by the 344 00:21:16.359 --> 00:21:20.039 first days of September, the boundary between my observation and 345 00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:24.680 the orchards strange patient rearrangement felt blurred at the edges. 346 00:21:25.720 --> 00:21:29.319 The next step seemed obvious. Pushed the system, test its 347 00:21:29.359 --> 00:21:32.920 boundaries and see if there were any. One afternoon below, 348 00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:35.799 a sky filled me with sea haze. I slipped down 349 00:21:35.839 --> 00:21:38.599 to the patch of ground furthest from the original boundary, 350 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:43.400 stones beyond even old man Haskins's favored bench. The plot 351 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:46.440 there was bare, just a well of sandy soil and 352 00:21:46.519 --> 00:21:49.480 a shadow from the tool shed. At four in the afternoon, 353 00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:54.079 there I carried my experiment, a young fig sapling from 354 00:21:54.119 --> 00:21:57.839 Pete's own greenhouse, still potted in its black plastic and 355 00:21:57.880 --> 00:22:01.720 with dirt crumbling from its roots. It was a species 356 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:05.400 with no orchard kin, no history among our apples, pears, 357 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:09.240 or plums. I pressed it into the ground, tamped the soil, 358 00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:12.119 pushed a colored tag into its crown, and with a 359 00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:16.400 feeling half mischief, half solemn experiment, I told Pete, who 360 00:22:16.440 --> 00:22:19.440 was lugging mulch in the wheelbarrow, let's see how deep 361 00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:23.880 the orchard's memory runs. He barked a laugh. Been wanting 362 00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:28.200 to smuggle something weird in here for decades. Watch next week, 363 00:22:28.279 --> 00:22:32.400 it might be growing tomatoes. Just to spite you, that evening, 364 00:22:32.519 --> 00:22:34.640 I tucked a card with the date under a rock 365 00:22:34.680 --> 00:22:38.640 by the sapling's roots. Then, with a superstitious wink at 366 00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:43.279 the gathering clouds, I locked the orchard gait. For seven days. 367 00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:48.880 I checked the sapling each morning. Nothing. It looked the same, drooping, defiant, 368 00:22:49.160 --> 00:22:53.279 a battered transplant, still unsure of its welcome. Then eight 369 00:22:53.400 --> 00:22:56.559 days later, after one of those autumnal storms that leave 370 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.960 gullies in the dirt and branches scattered like pick up sticks, 371 00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:04.119 I returned at dawn to find the fig changed, three 372 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:07.920 new branches, leafy, slender, poked from the stem, green as 373 00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:11.240 the first grass of April. There, clustered among the fresh 374 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:15.839 shoots hung three tiny, unmistakably apple shaped fruits, too small, 375 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:19.359 too early. My hand hovered over them, unwilling at first 376 00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:22.400 to touch the leaves closest to the apples were neither 377 00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:26.000 fig nor apple, something between, with the lobed structure of 378 00:23:26.039 --> 00:23:29.039 a fig but the downy surface and serrated edge of 379 00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:33.079 an apple. The branch above held a curiously rough patch, 380 00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:35.799 like the old knot I'd traced in the King's Apple, 381 00:23:36.200 --> 00:23:39.279 except now on a species that should not bear it. 382 00:23:39.279 --> 00:23:42.160 It wasn't a mistake in planting or in memory. It 383 00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:45.960 was physically impossible. I pulled my phone from my jacket, 384 00:23:46.279 --> 00:23:50.720 snapping pictures from every angle, feeling an exhilaration more than unease. 385 00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:55.640 By the following week, the apples vanished, and impossibly three 386 00:23:55.680 --> 00:24:00.160 globular pears had appeared, instead, matching in size and position 387 00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:04.160 the latest crop on the nearest rotational tree in that quadrant. 388 00:24:04.759 --> 00:24:07.519 Pete shook his head, white eyed when I dragged him 389 00:24:07.559 --> 00:24:11.480 by the collar at noon. So what now, he asked, 390 00:24:11.519 --> 00:24:16.960 not entirely joking. Cherries next week, I think, I said, quietly, 391 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:19.279 not sure if I were speaking to Pete or to 392 00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:23.079 the orchard itself. It'll do as it always does, It'll 393 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:27.880 keep turning no matter what we plant or prune. He leaned, 394 00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:31.519 in humming low. That fig was yours, But the apples 395 00:24:31.559 --> 00:24:35.119 and pears aren't you reckon. The orchard steals whatever's new, 396 00:24:36.200 --> 00:24:39.680 it doesn't steal. I found myself smiling in spite of 397 00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:43.119 the oddness. It makes everything belong in its own way. 398 00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:47.960 So if I planted a cactus, I clapped him on 399 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:51.240 the back. Let's leave the cacti in the greenhouse for 400 00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:55.200 every one's sake, he grinned, though some respect, or at 401 00:24:55.279 --> 00:24:59.480