Sorry for the shitty picture. One of these days I should take a photography class or something. That takes money, however... and since I no longer have a predictable income, I can't splurge on such things. It is hard to get rich as a substitute teacher.
The boughs I'm talking about are on the grand fir (the tree on the right in the picture.) There were several bright yellow branches on this tree- bright enough that I was able to see them while going by at 45 miles per hour.
My dad was driving, as usual. I had him pull over and back up. The tree was right next to some power lines, and the gold branches were about 60 feet up. I had no idea how I would get to them.
Dad had a neighbor who worked as an arborist. The next January, we stopped in to see if we could talk him into climbing the tree. It soon became apparent that the man was a blow-hard. He talked non-stop for a good hour, espousing the full compliment of anti-government conspiracy theories that seem to be prevalent up there in the woods. I wanted to get to the door and escape, but my dad was sitting there politely listening. I was just waiting for him to start into some kind of creepy anti-gay rhetoric (I'm a gay guy, so I was starting to get a little nervous) but he never got around to that.
We eventually got around to planning a time to go get pieces from the tree. The guy was going to have his son meet us and climb the tree.
On the way out the door, he shook my hand and said, "You know, you're a good-sized man. I like you. I like a good-sized man."
What in the fuck did that mean? Was it some kind of weird redneck come-on? Did it mean that he wanted to take me out back, tie me to the tractor and cut me into pieces? Have a romantic encounter in the hay barn? Both options seemed equally ghastly, so I was glad to get in the truck and head back down the driveway.
Of course, no one was home a few days later when we were supposed to meet the son and get the scions from the tree. It was at that point that I decided that I needed to learn to climb trees myself.
The following winter, Dad and I happened to stop by when the owner of the property was home. It actually turned out to be someone that Dad knew, so he gave me permission to shoot some twigs out.
It took about four shots, but I got a few pieces. In this picture, you can see one of the variegated twigs, complete with damage from the shot from the gun. Most of the buds were fine, so a little needle damage didn't matter that much. At least one of them took- the buds are breaking as I write this.
I've been told that irregular variegations like this are unpredictable. The only way to find out if it is stable is to grow it out for several years. It might continue to throw out yellow branches here and there throughout the tree, or it may simply revert to green.
The waiting will probably drive me nuts. I suppose that the only thing to be done about that is to go out and find more plants to obsess about this summer.
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