Witnessing the remarkable recovery of nature following devastation, never ceases to amaze me. I've seen a mountainside ravaged by wildfire one year and the following year be a more magnificent show of proteas and fynbos than ever before. In my early (and ignorant) homesteading years I enthusiastically hacked a fruit tree to a skeleton of its former self. It took that poor plum tree two years to recover from my amateur efforts. And yet in the subsequent seasons it bore more prolifically than any of its neighbours who had evaded (who knows how) my enthusiastic pruning.
Our small olive grove has just been pruned for the first time. Ever. By professionals. We learned a lot. The olive trees are grateful. The goats are grateful. The chickens are grateful. The bugs are not.
Olive trees were our first homesteading investment and purchase. We bought 40 saplings between one and two years old. We planted them. We watered them. We gave them plenty compost. We gave them time to grow big and strong. We waited. And waited. And waited.....
When it seemed like the young olive trees would begin fruiting a terrible wind destroyed all the baby olive blossoms. Next, BuckarooSenior - who thinks wielding a secateur automatically qualifies you - chopped here and there. The olive trees resembled a Picasso. Which, as an artist, even I find - shall we say - painful. We continued to water and compost. We also continued to buy our olives elsewhere. Recently heard about this fascinating woman and her pruning team.
She came in and tenderly worked her way through our olive grove. Instructing the young people as the pile of olive branches grew. And grew. And GREW
Trying not to get in the way the BuckarooFamily hovered in the winter sun with our equally excited chickens. Once you get over the shock of them cutting so much you can soon appreciate the similarity between a tree needing to be pruned....and a person.
The reality is that we are all like diamonds in the rough. The beauty only really sparkles once your edges have been thoroughly smoothed. And often in a not too gentle manner. Of course, to stick with the olive tree analogy, we humans need the hardship of a severe pruning to really bear fruit. We may not like it. At all. We may not think it is necessary. Or nice. Neither did the olive trees, I'm sure.
The olive trees may in all likelihood miss a season but when they do bear .... how beautifully and bountifully they will bear fruit!!! It would be so much less painful if this were not the case. But it is the nature of man. And tree.
Back in paradise the olive trees may be feeling rather naked without their huge coat. But everyone else on the homestead is appreciating the pruning. We'll mill the dried leaves to use as a dewormer. Both for humans and animals. Because there are are so many leaves it'll probably get added into the chickens nests. Speaking of chickens they are loving the open spaces and the little bugs that have fled from their diminished homes. Let's not forget my beloved goats. They were due for an immune boost and dewormer. We dragged armloads of branches into their night enclosure and the goats have been blissfully nibbling ever since.
Of course the mountainside where the little olive grove flourishes is beautiful. Perfect for a picnic. And childhood games. We are excited about the future fruit that will drip in their healthy beauty from those branches. This season we still enjoy the olives we bought and processed from another farm. But next year......
