Discarded Masterpiece

To see a master at work... Sr Cartaxo came to the land, as promised, this morning.  First he tackled the fruit trees - no pity at all, off came all the weak branches, regardless of oranges or nests - I'd been far too kind... they were old, he said, and needed all the old stuff lopping off, so the tree could renew itself. (Pretty sure there's a metaphor for life there...) And they needed watering. So we emptied out a load of our containers on them.

And then the olive trees. He showed me the difference between the wild branches that needed lopping off (darker green leaves, closer together, and no or very small olives), and the cultivated. But how, sometimes, you can graft into a wild branch that has grown strong, if the tree has got too old. He laughed at the question of whether they needed water - these trees are hundreds of years old and never yet been watered, he said.

He also laughed at the amount of work we had ahead of us, we could lop all summer and not be finished, he said. Proved the truth of that - took me all afternoon to do one tree. It does look good, though.