Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Peach Tree

"It grieveth me that I should lose this tree" - Jacob 5:11

Up until I moved into this house, I didn't have a fruit tree in my yard. I always wanted one, and always felt that I would enjoy having fresh fruit off the tree. After reading the long chapter of Jacob 5, I felt that if I had a fruit tree, I would be a good steward of it.

My peach tree is in bad shape. About 4 feet off the ground, it splits into 3 large branches. I looked out the window last Saturday and saw that one of the 3 branches was down. At first, we didn't know what happened. I went out to investigate, and saw that a few feet (about the height of a child) above the break was a small limb that was also broken. Using my highly scientific observations learned from watching CSI, I determined that there was a child in the tree; the big limb that he was standing on broke and he fell, breaking the upper smaller branch. I don't know who it was, but I suspect it was a friend of my one of my sons.

I'm not mad about it, but I am saddened that I lost 1/3 of my tree. Then the other day, my loving, kind, caring, giving, extra-special wife pointed out that another large branch has broken under its own weight. I didn't think that it was extra loaded down with fruit this year, but apparently, it was more than it could take. So now, I'm looking at the prospect of losing 2/3 of my peach tree. The peaches aren't even large yet. They resemble furry walnuts at this point. Maybe we can get enough out of them to make some jam or something. We'll have to see.

Our first September out here, Sara canned some peaches and made peach related products. One messed up attempt at making peach jam turned into peach syrup, which we then, in a brilliant stroke of irony, exported home to Georgia and South Carolina as Christmas gifts for our southern-dwelling families. Word has it that it was a big hit. Not too bad for messing up.

1 comment:

Adhis said...

And, hopefully, none of them read your blog. ;)

Now I have this song stuck in my head.