Monday, May 18, 2015

Orchard Ghost

I think I'm going to haunt Filoli's orchard. I'm going to move into the leaning trellis webbed with hanging gourd birdhouses, make a mattress of tufted grasses, and fall asleep with whatever critters also feel comfortable there. While the grand house of the estate is wonderful, and the manicured formal gardens, so carefully pruned and color-coordinated, are models of a tightly controlled garden vision, it's the fruit trees where I want to be.



Maybe I'll turn into a beetle that bores into stately trunks of the old espaliered pears and apples. Or, maybe I'll be a floating salsify seed, dancing in the untended grasses and wildflowers under the trees.




This last visit I—the real me, the one that can't live in Filoli's orchard—came home and registered online for six of the many orchard walks through the summer to tour the fruit trees through their harvest season, tasting from their offerings, dreaming of which will eventually live in my someday home.