Long Range Planning for Dessert

Well, prospero año nuevo, y’all! If you’re up and reading this before noon on the first day of 2019, you need to improve your social life.

Just kidding; your social life is exactly what it needs to be, especially if it includes reading the Gazette. Anyway, my cool cousin Pat, whose typewriter ribbon I’m not fit to change, has challenged me via Facebook to post something on New Year’s Day. I think it’s highly unfair of her to expect me to actually live up to my stated intention of blogging more regularly in 2019. After all, I said that literally days ago. So, Pat…this one’s for you. Be careful what you wish for.

How about those crazy squirrels, huh?

We have a bunch of plants in pots on our back patio, and we’re constantly sweeping up after the squirrels who tirelessly dig in them, either burying some treasure, or digging it up, or simply amusing themselves as they sit in the trees watching us sweep. Eh, that’s life around a bunch of trees, which is a new experience for us former desert-dwellers.

So, we brought a few of those potted plants into the house when the weather turned cold, to protect the contents from freezing. We were surprised a couple of weeks later to see some unusual new occupants sprouting in one of the pots.

They grew quickly, apparently quite happy with the indoor climate, and within a few more days we could make a definitive identification: they are pecan trees. Exhibit A:

It’s pretty obvious that the aforementioned squirrels, doing their Johnny Appleseed impersonations, impregnated this pot with a couple of pecans from our back yard trees, and those pecans have hatched [Ed. You’re not a botanist, are you?]

Our first impulse was to pull them up; the other occupant of the pot might not be happy sharing its little condo with strangers. But I got to thinking: what is a pecan tree after all but nature’s way of making pecan pie?

Taking the long view of things, my plan is to transplant these pecan kidlings on the bank of the creek that runs behind our house, once the weather warms up, and then let things take their course. If my plan works — and, really, it’s as flawless as all my other ones — I’ll be enjoying a tasty pecan pie on New Year’s Day 2025.

Well, assuming the squirrels don’t get to the pie seeds first.

[I really need to brush up on my botany.]