That IS a British connector though, isn’t it? That’s not North American.

Stupid cavemen. It makes way more sense the other way around. Just no ducks given about safety.

I’ve been wondering a lot about absurdism in humour. There are people who laugh when they see something disastrous happen, like a man reflexively trying to stop a cement truck from tipping and getting squashed dead. Or a recent news story of the only fatality in a school bus crash: it was an observer who got hit by a vehicle as he ran across the highway to see if the kids were ok. A lot of the time this laughing response to a disaster is interpreted as schadenfreude, but a good portion of the time I believe it’s absurdism.

We try so hard to have agency, to do something, but the World doesn’t give a fuck. You have two choices when shit goes so wrong: you can wail about the unfairness of it all, or you can laugh at the absurdity of our efforts in the face of the colossal chaos of it all. The laughter is stronger.

It’s interesting to me that some cultures seem to have absurd humour baked in. The Aussies and Kiwis seem to have it. They just make jokes about and laugh at the most horrific situations.

I’ve been wondering a lot about absurdist humour. Dan Carlin relates a story of an old Air Force colonel who

Lots of good articles on Canadian brutality in WW1 if you do a search. As for war crimes in particular, here’s one of many articles mentioning how Canadians killed prisoners of war:

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war

It doesn’t.

There is some truth to this. Your immune system requires challenges to be strong. People who live overly sanitized lives are often very susceptible to disease.

Birds are reptiles.

I mean, we’re kind of known for war crimes too. Was anyone in WW1 worse than the Canadians?

The Newborn. (“Crowning”)

Oh, this is something I love doing IRL. Love getting in there and pruning and shaping until things have been restored. I love being the chance to rejuvenate a neglected apple tree over the course of a few years.

Staaaahp! You and all your encouragement: you’re almost making me feel like I can do it today.

Vain fucking humans. How about it’s wrong to destroy Creation?

“Hurr durr raping Nature makes you ugly.”

… I’m feeling pretty cynical RN.

The lack of focus is fucking me up.

I’m surprised at many things. Why am I surprised this time?

I thought you were in Sechelt, BC!

… though the “ranch” doesn’t make much sense there.

It looks like it got punished by lack of water. Keep it well watered and see what comes back. You really can’t leave a potted tree unwatered for more than a few days. In hot weather you pretty well need to water them daily.

I’m not sure about the white fungus. There’s a chance that your trees root system or vascular system has been destroyed by a fungus, but they don’t usually present like this. Given what you said about not watering it I think that’s the most likely problem.

I mean, Mademoiselle Cochonne would be her own special kind of lady.

Yes. I noticed a decently reputable (but mega corp) bag of whole espresso beans… 50% robusta. I was surprised.

Everyone is right into burnt coffee for some reason too. I hear a lot of people talking about dark roasts and how they like “strong coffee”.

I encountered this when doing my master’s thesis. The data showed higher cattle use in very low density forest than in completely open areas. I wanted to follow that up to see why. I wondered if a bit of shade helped the forage stay green longer.

Always prune off dead, damaged, and diseased wood. Start there. Then prune stray and inward-facing branches. By stray I mean any stupid growth, like a little twig growing out of the trunk 8" from the ground. As for the inward-facing stuff, you don’t want a thicket of interlacing branches in the middle of the tree. Prune most of it out. Also prune out anything that’s growing very vertically through other branches.

That’s bare maintenance. After that you’re pruning for form for the kind of tree it is and the kind of tree you want.

From the photo it looks like you mostly need to clear out some of the inward-facing branches. (EDIT: nevermind, it’s too hard to tell from your picture.)

The maintenance prune would probably be fine, but I wouldn’t do a hard prune at this time of year. Traditionally, you do your hard pruning during the dormant season, but there’s starting to be more advice that a mid-Summer prune is also good.

I think the reason Google isn’t helping is because the pruning advice very much depends on the age of the apple, what your goal is, and what kind of apple it is.