When Life Hands You Plums...

A Facebook memory from 2016, posted during the Olympics, popped up the other day:

“And in the race between Terrie, the plum tree, and the wasp: it looks like Terrie's coming in first with a pail and a half of plums after overcoming a painful sting to her right hand and two pokes in the eye from wayward twigs. The tree takes the silver, hanging on to a few too-high-for-comfort plums. And the wasp, despite a promising beginning and fierce fight to the finish: dead last.”

In April 2013, when we first viewed our new home, the one and only tree on the property was exploding with gorgeous white blossoms and sashaying in the breeze like Marilyn Monroe over the subway grate. Though the tree looked and smelled wonderful in bloom, I suspected it might bear those sour, tiny plums that serve only to create a major mess in the yard. I wondered how long it would take us to hate the tree. A taste of its fruit in late July confirmed my notion.

But I was wrong.

I needed a little more patience. When our friend Noel saw the tree, he immediately identified it as a Pembina Plum and assured us it was healthy and would produce edible fruit. By late August, we were picking the loveliest, juiciest, sweetest plums and eating them simply for the pleasure of it. Over the years, I’ve made jam and jelly, smoothies and sauces, and fed many fresh plums to grandsons. And yes, the wasps and compost site have accepted their share of the windfall.

While standing on a step ladder picking them (wasp-free!) last week, I was reminded again of something we learned shortly after our move here. A friend told me that her dad planted the tree for his neighbor more than 50 years ago. I never met her father, nor the neighbor who built our house. I simply get to enjoy the results of their labor.

In Joshua 24, God tells his people, “I gave you land you had not worked on, and I gave you towns you did not build—the towns where you are now living. I gave you vineyards and olive groves for food, though you did not plant them.”

When you think about it, we each inherited things we held no control over. Maybe it’s your mother’s nose or your dad’s legs. Perhaps you were blessed with a genetic disease or the famous family temper. Maybe your parents handed down a legacy of poverty or alcohol abuse and you struggle with the same through no fault of your own.

But we forget the many good things that come our way through no fault of our own, every day. Think about your town, your school, your church. Others cleared the land, raised the funds, constructed the buildings, invoked God’s assistance, paved the streets, planted the crops, wrote the books, and invented the conveniences that enrich our lives. Others sacrificed so you could have. If you think about it enough, you can see this through every moment of your day, from the time your feet hit the floor in the morning. We are the beneficiaries of those who have gone before.

The 12th-century theologian and author John of Salisbury said, “We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.”

What are you planting today that future generations will reap?

 

The Happiest, Appliest Day

Only one tree grows on our property, not counting the city’s tree on the boulevard which casts lovely shade to the south side of our house. Our own backyard tree is a Pembina Plum that has blessed us with luscious fruit each year until this one. We think this year’s late frosts finished them off at the blossoming stage, and so the tree stands decked out in green simplicity.

But that’s okay. The tree probably needed a year off. And, as yummy as those plums taste, it can be a pain to try to pick or catch them before they litter the ground. In fact, I took advantage of this year’s lull to pick up a couple of pails full of old pits from the crushed rock below.

Judging by my neighbour’s apple tree, though, it’s going to be an abundant year for apples. During our time at Skerwood Mobile Home Park, we were fortunate to have an apple tree growing on our lot. For six seasons, we picked as many off the ground as we did from the tree. I felt a little disappointed last time I drove by to see the apple tree is now gone. 

My best memory of those apples happened in 2005, before I started eating more healthfully. Nowadays, I would turn them into unsweetened applesauce to use in my homemade granola, fruit salad, and oat bars. Then, though, making pies seemed like a sensible thing to do.

But not all by myself. Having filled five or six large boxes with apples, I invited my friend Gayle and her two lovely daughters for a pie-making fest. I would provide the fruit and the air-conditioned kitchen. They would supply the other ingredients. We’d all chip in on the labour and split the pies for our respective freezers.

The day turned out to be so much fun, I wrote a poem and have resurrected it for its tenth birthday, to share with you here. Happy fruit season!

                                                                                               

The Happiest, Appliest Day

The apple tree bowed to the ground with its load.

I picked and I plucked ‘til I thought I’d explode!

How would I grapple with all of this fruit?

I needed some help to transmute all the loot.

I promised adventure and thrills beyond measure

For all who’d assist with no show of displeasure.

Then three favorite redheads showed up at my door

To tackle the apples arranged on the floor.

Two sisters, their mother, the apples, and me

A warm autumn day, what fun this could be!

We cleared off the counters, the table, the sink

And cranked up the music too loudly to think.

I was the pastry chef, ready and willing.

Gayle was peeling, and Alison filling.

Veronica fluttered from station to station

Now peeling, now tasting in anticipation.

The flour was flying, the rolling pin rolled.

The peelings were reeling, the cinnamon gold.

Like a well-oiled skillful precision machine

We worked till we reached pie number thirteen.

We stopped for some lunch in the mess, what a scene!

Then onward and upward, to pie seventeen.

Now nineteen, now twenty, we kept on a-going

The sugar was shaking, the apple juice flowing.

What would we run out of first, time or flour?

Apples or pie plates or shortening or power?

With Pie thirty-five we declared the job done

Cleaned up the kitchen and called it all fun.

Then Veronica, Alison, Gayle and I

Treated ourselves to—what else? Apple Pie!