“Bob,” Will said, sprawled upside down on the sofa, playing on his mini.
“What?”
“You should call it ‘Bob.'”
This in answer to a comment I’d made to Jenny, who was sitting in the normal fashion on the same sofa, opposite me. You must always assume that children are listening, even when they obviously are not.
“We have to get a name for your dad’s new pick-up,” I’d said. “Any ideas?”

What could be better? Bob. I love it. When possible I will post a photo.

That settled, let’s move on to Saturday. Larry and I went to Philomath, to Shonnard’s Nursery for a class on fruit-tree pruning. Arriving a little early, we took our list over to the bin where the bare root trees were dug into bark dust. Found the apples we want, and went in to find chairs for the lecture. I can’t even tell you how much we didn’t know about pruning trees, but the talk started with a discussion of the necessary tools. I smiled, okay, maybe I was a little smug. I’d said I wanted some new clippers, but Larry said we already have some. True, but they’re not sharp any more and date at least from our Tigard days.

“The weed-whacker,” I started, counting on my fingers. “The truck . . .”
“Okay,” Larry said. “I see your point.” He was wise to concede before I got to the new chain saw. It was clearly my turn.

The lecture over, we went outside for a demonstration of the pruning techniques we were learning. So easy, or so it seems. “Outside and down.” I’m sure it will be formidable when we confront our own new trees. Which we proceeded to select. We will pick them up next week when 1.) the new fence is complete, and 2.) the sheep are out of the barn. Because we can’t pick up the trees until we have Bob, and we can’t have Bob until we’re able to park him overnight in the barn.

Ah, the sheep. There they are, in our pasture:

I have to admit, they’re a bit rough and tumble, not the fluffy white creatures in the sunlit green pastures of my imagination. Not a good photo, because I couldn’t get to the back side of the sun, but still. We’ll have a chance to see the shearing in action next Tuesday, weather permitting.

Larry wanted do give his new saw a test drive, so suited up and pulled a couple of limbs from the burn pile. (It is quite clear from the massive stack of already cut logs that a splitter is in our near future. I would remark that it’s another one for the “Larry’s-toys” column, but to be honest, I think the whole farm belongs in my column, and I won’t be playing that card very often.)

On arrival at home, I pulled the receipt for the trees from the pruning book we’d also acquired at the nursery. “Hey, Larry. Did we want dwarf trees? I thought we were getting semi-dwarf.”

But there they were. Seven trees, all of the dwarf appellation. On to Google. Dwarf trees will grow from 5 to 7 feet, and mature and bear fruit earlier than the semi-dwarf or standard varieties. But 5 feet? That’s shorter than I am. Those would be apple bushes. Not what we had in mind!

We call the nursery and are told that the trees will be 12 feet tall. Is this true? We had just assumed that the trees we were buying were semi-dwarfs, were sure that the bins were labeled that way. Is this another case of “let’s give the old people something they can manage in their cute little yard — after all, they need something that’s going to start producing pronto?” Grr.

We await further clarification when the nursery again opens for business.