So I woke up this morning around 4:30 am, which is my norm.  I had my coffee... didn't have to work today... so pretty soon I'm bored.  Then I had an idea.  It was a GREAT idea... at least at first.  I thought that since it was so early I could go "borrow" a branch or two from this beautiful fig tree that I spotted days earlier that was clinging to life on the side of a freeway.  Its location was precarious, to say the least, but not on anyone's private property so I thought it would be an easy snip, snip and I'm outta there.  Since it was so early and it's a Friday, I figured there'd be few cars on the road and no one really paying attention to me.  It was starting to get light out so I headed out.

I was on the road and was merging onto the freeway and I had positioned myself so that there were no cars behind me so I would have plenty of time to pull off my heist.  Since I was not quite sure exactly where it was located, the fig tree snuck up on me way too quickly and I had to abruptly pull over.  It wasn’t exactly how I remembered it; there wasn’t much room - just enough for my truck to be over the line - and it was near the end of an over-crossing/flyway off ramp.  It seemed the fig tree was growing out of a crack in the concrete, on the side of the ramp.  There were a few more cars on the road than I anticipated and I felt a bit like “Frogger.”  When it was clear, I jumped out of my truck, ran around to the side, grabbed a branch and leaned and reached over the guardrail to snip off a good-sized branch.  After I got the branch, still leaning, I lost my footing and dropped my Corona pruning shears.  They fell about 6 feet below me, lodging themselves in the branches of the tree.   Frazzled, I went to jump back in my truck to take off but then I realized… hey, that’s $30 I’m leaving in that tree.  So I got back out of my truck, dodging cars.

I ran ahead 50 yards or so to jump the guardrail, ran back down the steep embankment… but now standing at the base of the fig tree I see my pruning shears about 12 feet above me, with no way to get to them because the tree’s coming out of the crack in the side of the flyway.  So I do what any normal person would do… I start shaking the &%#$ out of the tree to dislodge my shears.  It works, sending a couple extra branches down with them (yay!).

Then I run back to my truck, hoping that Highway Patrol doesn’t see me coming over the embankment with an armful of branches.  I dodged a few more cars and hopped in my truck. 

When I got home I saw that the branches had a variety of lobed leaves, ranging from 3 to 7 lobes.  First I took pictures so that I could “show off” my fig find, then prepared the branches for rooting.  Then I got on Figs 4 Fun forum and searched this anomaly and came across a thread that is remarkably similar to what I got, titled “Local Nursery Brown Not.”  It starts sinking in that maybe it’s a Brown Turkish fig… and my heart sinks.  I’m thinking, Did I really risk my life for a Brown Turkey?  I probably have like 10 of them started in 1 gallon pots…

So here’s some photos of my heist…would love some input on its possible variety, even if to confirm its a BT.  Also could use some advice on early morning activities so as not to do something so foolhardy again J