Thanks for all of the feedback. I did a couple of things, I regrafted the cleft in one last ditch effort. If I get nothing again, I'll do a renewal cut on it in February and see if I can get another sprout next year on the chunk of wood I leave. Otherwise, you're right mark, I'll use that new sprout, this tree put out thick growth in 1 season. They're thick enough where a matching whip and tongue isnt possible. I made my own watersprout with a rind graft on an injury callous that is really green, huge cambium coverage. Vertical rind graft, dead straight up. I didnt know mature stock was tan, I was expecting to at least see the rind a green color. Thats good to know. The core of the wood was a medium brown and wet. It looked like the scaffold was keeping the scion alive, almost on life support, enough to keep it green but not enough juice to grow it. Almost like a zombie scion. It is the lowest branch on the tree, but its over my head, about 7 feet off the ground. Im greedy at this point, my Belle de Boskoop graft is going to be a monster, Freyberg took from Geneva, Scott, your freyberg grafts are still on the tree and turning bright green, no bud push, but they're bright red, so im leaving them on. I have Calville Blanc d'Hiver on the tree with a 1 year wood graft, Reine des Reinettes tried to flower but I clipped them on Mark's advice, now its blowing up. So all of this conjecture is just greed I guess, trying to get the most out of the wood I have, I think im ditching the rest of them soon. Thanks for your thoughts guys, I appreciate it, Im an amateur, totally new to this, and this has been a big time learning experience. People were staring at me from the road today, wondering what I was doing in the tree. Caught one lady staring, I said, "Just doing a little grafting." felt good to say that. She just nodded. "Ah..."

Steve I will add my 2 cents. I used to remove most but leave a few especially on determinate plants. Then I joined the internet forums and started removing all. Then the drought hit over 3 years ago along with some disease and insect issues. Along with the weather I've had trouble with plants setting fruit at all. So now if they have early flowers especially on a determinate I leave them. I may feed them a little extra with a hose end sprayer. I've kept notes and haven't seen any drop off in production. If a plant was loaded with blooms or setting fruit then I might pinch a few. I noticed no difference in the mature size of the plant from those that were blooming when I set them out and those that weren't either. I have even left a fruit on occasion in the last 2 years. If you do feed the plant well. It will be a little slower to reach mature size but if fed well will do ok. I've done this mainly on plants I didn't have anymore seed of and really needed to save seeds and didn't want to risk the chance of pinching one off and not getting anymore. The one thing to remember is if you leave fruit or blooms the first fruit may take longer to ripen than the later fruit. I attribute part of that to the fact the plant is trying to grow along with produce fruit at the same time. The fruit may also be smaller than later fruit. My results have been different from yours in that my fruit has been of good quality just smaller usually. Like so many things what works in one garden or one region won't work elsewhere. Jay

Wonderful pictures! I searched and found references to "Ceremonial Gaping" in robins. "Courtship includes courtship feeding, where the male feeds the female; ceremonial gaping, where the males and females approach each other and touch widely opened bills; and singing." Hinterland Who's Who Claire

I have seen Black Rat Snakes do this also, plus King Snakes, Water Snakes, Garter Snakes, and I once had a captive Deer Mouse that did it too. People think the sound is supposed to sound like a Rattlesnake, but the Rattler is really trying to sound like something else. Many land vertebrates hiss, a sound that is very disruptive to the nervous systems of most vertebrates. Just let someone sneak up behind you and go "psssst" real loud. You will jump, and that is the hope of all these creatures, that the predator will jump, get distracted, and allow just one split second for the beleaguered animal to get away, Rattler included. They, as most of us, would rather run than fight. I have found that Racers, if approached slowly and gently, can be picked up in the field, but once frightened and aroused, will musk and bite and cannot be calmed down. They will usually race away at high speed. This leads me to think you may have seen a Black Rat Snake (depending on where you live, of course - over most of their range they aren't out yet).