Slim Randles
We have a master gardener in our family. Two, actually. My wife, Catherine, and
her identical twin, Eleanor. These women spent a whole year studying stuff like
how to grow things that you’d like to have and how to avoid growing things that
turn your stomach.
Catherine is really active in the group and volunteers to find volunteers. Hey, you
can ask. She loves doing it, and I’m kinda an occasional tag-a-long.
We went to a pruning clinic just the other day to learn how to prune grapevines.
We listened, took pictures and snipped things off that looked to me like they
belonged where we found them.
Shows what I know.
At home we prepared to give our own grapevine a thorough inspection to see
about things like new growth, arms, bumps on the arms, all that stuff that
knowledgeable gardeners who attend pruning clinics learn.
It’s a wild grapevine that began life in a canyon up in the fairly nearby desert
mountains. I, being a know-nothing gardener, wrenched it from its ground and
planted it in the side yard here at the house. That was about 20 years ago. Since
that time, it has flourished, having reached out to our neighbors to the south, and
consumed everything in its path that held still long enough.
So out we went to our tiny little part of the viticultural world, just outside the
office window a little way, and the vine exploded in our faces as a mama white-
winged dove blasted out of there to a neighbor’s tree. After undergoing self CPR,
we looked and there was a tiny nest of twigs in the top of the grapevine. With two
little eggs sitting quietly, waiting for Mom to come home.
I don’t care how much our “vineyard” needs it, there will be no pruning on it
without the full blessing of The Family Dove. Maybe next year.
Xoxoxox
Brought to you by “Max Evans, the First Thousand Years,” by Slim Randles.
Available in bookstores and online from UNM Press.
