Fall is my favorite time of year. While most of the country receive frost on the pumpkin, the leaves turn scarlet, russet, orange, and yellow, and the animals put on their thick winter coats, our signals of fall are the very epitome of subtlety. Our days are the most clear of the year, temperatures in the high 70's, but with crisp nights (at least crisp for us). The evening sounds change, frogs chirp in the canyon, dozens of different insect sounds begin that are unheard the rest of the year. October and November always give our best sunsets of the year. There is nothing like floating in a kayak on the ocean as the sky begins to be painted in tempera tones before your eyes. We shared the first apple pie of the season with friends. Fall apple pies are better in every way than those made during other seasons. It is also our best time of year for gardening. It is time to clean up the thick and abundant growth of summer and prepare the soil and plant winter crops. Fall is also our very best planting time.
Part of the rhythm of fall planting is making tough long term decisions. Occasionally a tree must be removed because it isn't performing the way it should. I have removed plenty of trees for not performing in the past. The prevailing mood of our times is that performance ought not be taken into account anyway. In soccer tournaments everyone gets a trophy because we would feel badly if anyone had their feelings hurt by not winning. Little League games no longer keep score of runs. We pass everyone on to the the next grade, because we are concerned being held back might damage their self-esteem. It seems the realm of agriculture is the last bastion of the cold, hard, no-nonsense assessment of fruitfulness. To a farmer, a tree gives a return on the investment of space, water, fertilizer, and the time and care of the grower or it is cut down. My post-modern/non-judgmental/failure to criticize mind can barely take in the concept. A living thing should have its life terminated purely for failure to perform? Almost unfathomable.
Preparing apple pies reminded me I have a agonizing decision to make. I am confronted with a four-fold decision of extreme difficulty. Four apple trees of mature age and substantial size need to come down. Adding to the difficulty of the decision is another factor most farmer/businessmen do not face. These four trees have tremendous sentimental value for me. They have names: Anna, Ein Shemer, Gravenstein, and Beverly. Anna was the first tree I planted when we moved into our home. Ein Shemer was a gift from dear Israeli friends from the kibbutz on which it was created in the Gallilee. Beverly was removed from a friend's garden that would have been otherwise cut down. Gravenstein is the most fragrant apple I have ever smelled. It also juices into better cider than any other apple. These trees are dear to me. Removing a tree is not like painting a wall a different color. It is not receiving a bad haircut that will grow out and can be re-fashioned next month. There is a horrendous permanence to a tree's removal. I grieve when I see the stumps of giant sequoias in the Sierra's that are now flat discs of wood twenty feet across that merely give a hint of their former glory as the world's oldest and grandest living things.
The trees will come down. The die is cast. The saw sharpened. My precious tree from the kibbutz is gone, a stump. The rest are next. Why must they be removed?
They have been infected by a tiny pest. How can something so small become such a menace? It looks so inconspicuous. A tiny bit of white fuzz, a little blister or gall, a speck of mildew. They have been overcome by woolly apple aphid. This pest, once active, spreads to every tree in the orchard. The pest does some damage where you can see it, but it is far from distressing to view. In fact it looks like almost no problem at all. Where the real damage happens is the roots. There is no cure, no remedy, no alleviation of this desperate sickness.
The pest travels underground, unable to be reached or affected by any sprays. It travels along the roots of a tree like a truck on a highway till it comes into contact with other apple tree roots. It infects them and moves to the next victim. The bulk of the damage remains unseen above ground. The roots can no longer pull water to the mass of tree above ground. The tree will not be killed by the pest, just become a vector to infect other trees. Oh yes, and one other thing, the tree no longer bears fruit. In spring the flowers still appear, the bees still pollinate them, they give tremendous signs of promise as small apples form. Then later, in the heat of summer every last fruit aborts. There is nothing more pathetic than seeing so much promise turn to empty, lost dreams of what might have been. Such have been my apples of the last twenty years. Perhaps I should have acted sooner. Each year I would say, next year will be different, maybe this will pass. This is most unfortunate and most unpleasant work.
"See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" Hebrews 12:15. Are we like trees? Can the root of bitterness we possess spread unseen infecting others? Can that infection be a source of trouble, defilement, or discouragement among others in the family of God? Absolutely. I have seen it firsthand. It is every bit as ugly seeing the orchard of the Lord made unfruitful as my own tiny apple orchard. I think that is the very heart of the warning given us by the author of Hebrews.
"I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man or woman remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like an unfruitful branch that is thrown away and withers; such unfruitful branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned......" John 15.
I realize there is biblical warrant for what I am about to finish.......but I am still so saddened.
