Orcharding today

It's a beautiful, crisp morning in the Deep South today, perfect for visiting the old orchards of the Woodland's area to collect scions for our grafting project. We're taking a GPS to pin the exact location of each ancient apple tree onto a map for future reference and we have a clutch of hand-drawn maps that we've been given by the owners of some of the very old family orchards as well as some we drew ourselves on previous visits. I've charged-up several batteries for my camera and will be firing off shots willy-nilly, as well as methodically recording the orchards for posterity and the book Robyn is writing on the heritage orchards of Southland.
Anna Star's coming too, so it'll be a very pleasant day out on the green Southland plains. I only wish there was fruit on the trees but at this time of the year it'll just be bare twigs. I'm looking forward to collecting some scion wood of an ancient medlar at the Brean's farm from a tree I saw there several years ago. and bringing them back to graft onto the quinces I've grown here for the purpose. Medlar have the most magnificent blossom and their branches grow in a very attractive manner - there are too few medlars growing in gardens and orchards and I'd like to remedy that.
There's some urgency around our mission in that the rapid spread of dairy farms in Southland often results in the destruction of the old orchards as they flatten everything 'un-needed' to grass level, though there are some who stay their hand, sensing maybe, the value of trees that produce food and have been nurtured from a time before their parents were born. Some.
Must pack a good lunch and a thermos of green tea, which reminds me, I've made a date with my wife to stop off at Mrs Clark's cafe in Riverton for a pot of their amazing Chinese white tea - it's really excellent and according to Cazna, not yet popular with customers, who can be slow to adapt to something new.