“My figs are ripe!” I told Cousin Dusty on the phone. I knew this even though I could not actually see them. I had been hearing a glorious chorus of happy birds and I suddenly realized why they were so darn happy — they were in my fig tree — eating my figs! There was a lot of excited fluttering and they were singing, “Woo-Hoo! Ripe Figs! Oh Yum!” I’m pretty sure that’s what they were saying, because that’s what I say when they get ripe. The crop wasn’t very big this year, unfortunately. I’d been watching one particular fig which was eye-level and visible from the dining room. Sure enough, it was purple — the thing about figs is that they get ripe overnight. Literally. They are green…green…green and then suddenly PURPLE. As soon as I hung up the phone, I dashed outside and was dismayed to discover several figs had been eaten into… Read More »
My Personal Garden of Eden
“That’s a perfect example of how you don’t want to do it,” he said as we stood in my personal Garden of Eden (a/k/a my back yard). He was pointing to a truncated limb on my apricot tree, and he is the guru from the University Agricultural Extension Service. “Yep,” I said. “That looks pretty bad.” The limb had been hacked off and many little branches sprouted out like a cartwheel. Unsightly. Who would do such a thing? Hmmm… maybe someone who didn’t know what she was doing? Who just wanted that limb to stop rubbing on the shingles and dropping apricots out of reach high on the roof where they sat and rotted? But whoever that person was, she was keeping her mouth shut. “Now the fig is another matter,” he said as he turned around. Some branches were so low that they swept the ground, but others towered… Read More »
