Hello Friend!
On Tuesday, I was pruning apple trees with my friend, Ed, and we found an earthworm. The first earthworm of the year. It was wiggling about in the grass and patchy snow. I picked it up because I thought the snow must be too cold for a little worm body. I don’t know. It was cold on my skin. So, I placed them in some bare mud and covered them with a moss blanket to hide them from the birds (who would probably love to eat the first worm of the year. Ed says this is good luck. Finding the first worm of the year. It seems to me that it is quite early for a first worm. I have done a cursory search for this worm lore and have come up short on answers. I don’t care if Ed is making it up (in my opinion, Ed is the kind of person who is allowed to make the rules for the world). The only thing I can think of that is remotely similar is checking the colors of wooly worms to determine what kind of winter we will be having. Wooly worms are funny caterpillars that are partially brown and black, with variations between individuals in the amount of each color. They say that if wooly worms are mostly brown, it will be a mild winter and if they are mostly black, it will be cold and rough. I haven’t done a real wooly worm study (maybe I should) but it seems to me that for the most part, the random variation evens out. And we can’t predict the weather so well anymore. I don’t know if I have to activate this earthworm’s luck by making a wish or something or if the luck just starts once you see the worm. Will most of my year be lucky because I saw them so early in January? Because I can choose positivity, I think yes. Thank you, worm. I hope you have a great year, too.
I’ve been pruning this week, as I mentioned in my last letter. I’ve finally gotten to a point in the process where I don’t get sad every time I cut the old growth back. Maybe I’m desensitized, or maybe I understand it better. What it takes to grow. Letting go of the old self. Etc. Or maybe I am just getting better with practice. I find I like pruning apple trees more than I like pruning grape vines. I think it’s because grape pruning is less creative. The vines get cut back more, there’s less variation and creative choice. Whereas each tree is very different and it takes all of my attention on this specific tree to decide what will be best for them. It does take longer than pruning grapes, maybe just for this reason. I, historically, have been not very good at making decisions. When someone asks me what I want to do, I tend to just list all of the options. When it came to pruning, I would ask Ed for his opinion on what to do. Should I take this big branch off because it’s too low and growing at the wrong angle? Or is it too big to trim this year? But, eventually, I found I was able to make the decisions myself. I can only hope this will translate into decision-making in other aspects of my life. As I gather experience, I’ll get better at it.
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