Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Learning to Share

We used to have two wimpy little apricot trees along the side of our house. Then, last year, one of them croaked unexpectedly. Everything above about 3 feet off the ground just died. Bummer. The surviving tree looks to be in peril as well, with a big, expanding black crack a couple feet up the trunk. But it flowered and produced plenty of fruit this year.

I tried to wait until it was ripe to pick, but I noticed lots and lots of half-eaten apricots on the ground and decided to pick as many as I could reach before there were none left.I probably picked about three dozen. But they weren't ripe. I had to put them in paper bags on the counter to ripen. It worked well and now they're delicious! But...there were lots of apricots I couldn't reach. I wasn't even sure how the squirrels could reach them. I thought maybe I'd get out the big clippers and just cut off whole branches to get to them.

But, I hesitated. And these guys didn't. I accept that I need to share with the wildlife, such as it is. But really, couldn't they share a little more with us?

1 comment:

Barrett, Melinda, Angel Trinity, and Baby Zander said...

yes, nature should share with us more often. Maybe to get those apricots, they should pick off the ones you can reach, give them to you, then you give back to them the ones they can eat...it's not realistic I know, but a funny thought! ;)