All the waiting was worth it. OK, sure, these royal gala apple trees are pruned hard at their tips to draw heavily fertilized water up past the weak fruiting wood below and are having a hard time settling into winter, but that doesn’t go for everyone. I got up to first snow and went for a daybreak walk in celebration. Not just me …

This ring-necked pheasant had the same idea. Dwarf apple trees are great for ring-necked pheasants. Don’t like the pesky writer up on the hill? Dodge into the next row.

And if the writer peers around the trees, for the third time, back and forth like tennis, then you do what you gotta do …

Run! Definitely a healthy response around such dangerous creatures. I was just happy to see this guy. It’s good to see that a few of them are still around. They represent a fine response to land-settlement interfaces and a powerful way to keep that porous and, besides, they are the spirit of farming in the Okanagan. What a perfect morning.