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Infamous Winter 2014!
Work brings the whole crew to Charleston SC to work on a project for the VA hospital. We started the job a couple of weeks after Christmas and lasted roughly three months. We'd drive up from Atlanta every Thursday evening (a five and a half hour trip) and work at the VA hospital till Sunday late afternoon and then back home to work in town( ATL) for the rest of the week! Fun times I tell ya! The upside,The money was great and the company rented two ,three bedroom luxury beach front condos for us. Downside? Spend the weekends away from home ( ChrisK is a home cat), in a luxury resort by the beach in 10 degree weather! So every night after work ,I and another coworker who did not fear of the brutally cold weather, would swit up in our Jim clothes and go for a long jog. We would start running "up" the sand and parallel to the beach for a mile or so and then turn back "down " on the paved road ,admiring the +million vacation homes!! Well among those very exclusive homes are some older ,more down to earth homes , being renovated to keep up with the changing times or being bulldozed to give way to the "new"!
Well my friends, as you all expected , there is a fig element somewhere in the story and your patience will pay off
!
One of those older homes has a huge fig tree growing on the left and south side of it ( I ve only seen the mother tree in dormant state) and a sign hanging on the handrail ,reading" Green Fig"! I pulled on the emergency brake, pulled a 360' stopped and stared with a big , huge grin on my face!!! My "fig ninja" alter ego took over and dangerous thoughts started zipping through my head like, Home Depot, pruner, midnight, run like Heck ......etc,etc!
"Hey Boss,what's up,are you ok?" My bud said. Uuuumm, sure I replied, and turned back jogging towards the hotel. A few hundred yards down the road and on the opposite side of the road , another fig tree, right there staring at me with its naked limbs violently shaking in the cold wind and just like the "Green Fig" ,not a trace of dead wood on it. Nice ,healthy ,dormant branches but that tree is a different story!
FF a couple of weeks and I managed to push "fig ninja" Chris K aside, found the courage and during a run ,knocked on the "Green Fig" house door. A very nice lady answered the door and her Hasband followed! I had rehearsed that moment many times in an attempt to sound as sane as possible and it turned out ok. " I apologize for the interruption " I said," I was passing by and couldn't help but notice the sign" . Well , that was it.
They were more than happy to tell me the story. They had bought the house three years ago and moved there from inland NC . They had a fig tree that produced dark figs at the old house and were very happy to find a huge fig tree at the new one but had no info about it so they naturally waited for the figs to turn dark with no success ,until they noticed the birds picking them off and pecking them while still green. They don't know much about figs or think about them the way "we" do so the only info they could give me was that it's a green ,Delisious fig. They very kindly offered me any cutting or root sucker I wanted. I took a long branch ( cutting) and one four foot root sucker and on my next trip back I gave them a three foot tall LSU purple air layer and a bunch of Celeste cuttings to repay their kindness!
I was hoping that ,by now, I'd have pics of the ripe fruit to post but I only managed to get a single late fig to pop and I don't know if it will get to ripen. I noticed the little fig the day of Dennis' fig festival on 8/22 and it has grown pretty big since then but.... If the weather stays warm long enough it just might. I'm posting pics from the root sucker that now is planted inground ant the single cutting that rooted and lives in a 5 gal pot and produced the fig. Any ideas on IDing it are welcome and I will be updating the story with pics of the ripe fruit if it does happen.
Thanks very much for reading!
To be continued.....
Work brings the whole crew to Charleston SC to work on a project for the VA hospital. We started the job a couple of weeks after Christmas and lasted roughly three months. We'd drive up from Atlanta every Thursday evening (a five and a half hour trip) and work at the VA hospital till Sunday late afternoon and then back home to work in town( ATL) for the rest of the week! Fun times I tell ya! The upside,The money was great and the company rented two ,three bedroom luxury beach front condos for us. Downside? Spend the weekends away from home ( ChrisK is a home cat), in a luxury resort by the beach in 10 degree weather! So every night after work ,I and another coworker who did not fear of the brutally cold weather, would swit up in our Jim clothes and go for a long jog. We would start running "up" the sand and parallel to the beach for a mile or so and then turn back "down " on the paved road ,admiring the +million vacation homes!! Well among those very exclusive homes are some older ,more down to earth homes , being renovated to keep up with the changing times or being bulldozed to give way to the "new"!
Well my friends, as you all expected , there is a fig element somewhere in the story and your patience will pay off
! One of those older homes has a huge fig tree growing on the left and south side of it ( I ve only seen the mother tree in dormant state) and a sign hanging on the handrail ,reading" Green Fig"! I pulled on the emergency brake, pulled a 360' stopped and stared with a big , huge grin on my face!!! My "fig ninja" alter ego took over and dangerous thoughts started zipping through my head like, Home Depot, pruner, midnight, run like Heck ......etc,etc!
"Hey Boss,what's up,are you ok?" My bud said. Uuuumm, sure I replied, and turned back jogging towards the hotel. A few hundred yards down the road and on the opposite side of the road , another fig tree, right there staring at me with its naked limbs violently shaking in the cold wind and just like the "Green Fig" ,not a trace of dead wood on it. Nice ,healthy ,dormant branches but that tree is a different story!
FF a couple of weeks and I managed to push "fig ninja" Chris K aside, found the courage and during a run ,knocked on the "Green Fig" house door. A very nice lady answered the door and her Hasband followed! I had rehearsed that moment many times in an attempt to sound as sane as possible and it turned out ok. " I apologize for the interruption " I said," I was passing by and couldn't help but notice the sign" . Well , that was it.
They were more than happy to tell me the story. They had bought the house three years ago and moved there from inland NC . They had a fig tree that produced dark figs at the old house and were very happy to find a huge fig tree at the new one but had no info about it so they naturally waited for the figs to turn dark with no success ,until they noticed the birds picking them off and pecking them while still green. They don't know much about figs or think about them the way "we" do so the only info they could give me was that it's a green ,Delisious fig. They very kindly offered me any cutting or root sucker I wanted. I took a long branch ( cutting) and one four foot root sucker and on my next trip back I gave them a three foot tall LSU purple air layer and a bunch of Celeste cuttings to repay their kindness!
I was hoping that ,by now, I'd have pics of the ripe fruit to post but I only managed to get a single late fig to pop and I don't know if it will get to ripen. I noticed the little fig the day of Dennis' fig festival on 8/22 and it has grown pretty big since then but.... If the weather stays warm long enough it just might. I'm posting pics from the root sucker that now is planted inground ant the single cutting that rooted and lives in a 5 gal pot and produced the fig. Any ideas on IDing it are welcome and I will be updating the story with pics of the ripe fruit if it does happen.
Thanks very much for reading!
To be continued.....
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