Spraying of the Trees

On the Farm, the trees get sprayed. If they don’t all sorts of bugs will come and eat that fruit right up! And we can’t have that. So, each year the Farmer goes about and sprays when and where his Wife tells him. And this is what she says:

“Right here. This one,” she points to a tree whose buds are closed up tight.

The Farmer aims the nozzle and douses it until it drips blue–for some reason the copper they use to stop any and all fungi is blue. Why blue? Why not green or brilliant orange as you’d expect any good copper to be? But it’s not. It’s sky blue and thick.

The Farmer’s Wife makes her way around to another tree. This one has petals, just beginning to peak through. The Farmer’s Wife raises her hand, stopping the Farmer and his nozzle. Sometimes he gets a bit trigger happy.

“We’re too late for this one,” she says. “We’ll have to wait until fruit set to spray those.”

And what is fruit set you might be asking, and why are we waiting for it when so many bugs want to chomp down on our fruit? Doesn’t the Farmer’s Wife want pie and jams and jellies and such along with her cheeses? Isn’t she concerned a beetle or gnat or lady-fly will make its way over to that particular tree and gobble it all up? Just look at them there, sitting on those blades of grass, just waiting to see which trees will be forgotten.

Well I’ll have none of it, let me tell you. I’m going to march right over there and tell the Farmer’s Wife to spray that tree–petal or no petal.

The Farmer’s Wife looks affectionally down towards a bee lazily meandering from one wishing flower to the next. “Don’t worry.” she tells the bee. “We’ll keep the petals nice and dry for you.”

Oh! I see. The spray would hurt the bees, too! And all the other good bugs who make their way here and there once the flowers arrive. But that still doesn’t tell me what fruit set is and why we’re waiting for it.

“It’s not worth risking the bees,” the Farmer’s Wife says to the Farmer before moving along to the next tree. “We’ll just have to wait for the flower and a bee to make an itsy bitsy apple-to-be and then we’ll spray it, extra good. ” She looks down at a beetle, who gnashes his teeth at her.

Oh good. I thought she hadn’t seen them.

The next tree gets sprayed from top to bottom. And it’s a good thing, too. The Farmer was starting to look like he needed a thing or two to do–otherwise he might go and spray who knows what!

They make their way here and there, back and forth, up and down until each (unflowered) tree gets a good coating. The Farmer’s Wife smiles. “There. Now, we’ll have all the jams we want!”