| Apple trees and Century plant flourish amid processing units
Against the backdrop of processing units functioning nonstop, the branches of a large apple tree are laden with tart fruit, so much that the tree leans slightly under the weight. The smaller apple tree is bearing fruit for the first time this year. A group of Shell Deer Park employees planted the tree in 2002 in memoriam to their colleague, Larry Kelley.
“I noticed the red-tart apples in early June,” says Don Pehl, mechanical specialist for the Refinery. “They were a nice size – probably small to medium. Many fell off and became food for the birds.” Pehl suspects that several coworkers may have gleaned some of the fruit from the large tree as well.
“Several employees commented that the apples were tasty,” says Deborah Kelley, senior scheduler-business management for the Refinery.
In another area of the facility, an agave from Mexico stretches its limbs toward the hot Deer Park sky and shoots out large blooming spikes. The Century plant is ubiquitous in Arizona’s Verde Valley area, but the plant bloomed at Shell Deer Park with clusters of gray-green leaves. Some say the Century forms those rosettes every 100 years, which is how it got the name. Actually, the plant lives a quarter of a century, blooming only once during its lifetime because the spikes sap the plant’s resources. It usually dies after flowering unless propagated.
The Century plant holds a spirited legacy. Native Americans used the plant as a source of soap, food, fiber, weapons, needles and medicine. Sometimes they drank the root tea made from it to remedy arthritic conditions. In Mexico, enterprising locals fermented the sap, a sweet liquid from the heart of the plant, to produce an alcoholic beverage called pulque. The beer-like beverage is still marketed.
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