Posted on 04/24/2011 2:56:54 PM PDT by ancientart
Wherever we moved, one of the first things Dad did was build a waist-high planter box. He'd construct it along the back fence of each California tract home, then fill it with soil and plant a garden.
At our last home, Dad paved the ground with brick and concrete, but the yard still brimmed with life.
Dad built a trellis for red and green grapes. The vines grew into a shady canopy, dripping with grape clusters.
He planted plum trees for color, learned to espalier apple trees against a side fence, and built a large box for an avocado.
Mostly, he loved to plant dwarf citrus trees.
When he died, the backyard produced lemons, limes, grapefruit, tangelos, kumquats and several varieties of oranges. It took much tending and care to keep his trees in top condition.
The day he died, I had flown in to see him, but he wasn't conscious when I arrived. He breathed hard and fast in his dark bedroom. Outside, in the sunny backyard, orange blossoms scented the air, so I opened the windows to let him smell those blossoms one last time. Three hours later, he was gone.
Since then, Mom has struggled to care for the citrus trees. She never knows how much water they need. She doesn't have the strength to trim them. Still, they produce fabulously.
Now that she is in her 80s, the hardest part is harvesting.
Together, my parents would box the fruit and take it all to the senior center.
She can't manage that now.
Each year, Mom offers fruit free for the picking, with surprisingly few takers. She called a hunger group called Senior Gleaners, thinking they might want her fruit. They were curt with her and did not come.
She tried calling religious groups and charities, but she found no takers among them.
She's mentioned the too-much-fruit problem to individuals, but so far, no one has taken her up on her free fruit offer. So the fruit rolls around the concrete and bricks, and eventually rots.
The trees aren't tall, but they are loaded with fruit, most within easy reach.
The fruit-refusers don't know what they are missing. Red-pulped, juicy Moro oranges ooze with flavor. The navels are juicier than any you find in a store's produce section. Her tangy grapefruit are beyond refreshing.
Here is the product of years of care: fruit at its most luscious. And there are no takers.
What? You mean I must bring my own box? What? You mean I must stretch my arm? What? I have to open my fingers, grab and then PULL? You are asking too much!
The situation reminds me of those (fortunately rare) times I spend a whole day cooking a hearty chicken dinner, or my family's favorite lamb curry or shredded pork tacos. I bake fresh bread, toss a salad, set the table. Then, somehow, no one comes when I announce dinner. Children are too busy with homework, or in the middle of a computer game, or they “might come in a minute.”
Easter's spiritual offerings are like that. They're free for the picking, Open invitation. According to a parable, a man once said, “Come to the banquet; all things are ready.” But the invitees only stammered out excuses.
Once my kids actually taste the tacos, they even ask for seconds.
If my mom's neighbors only knew what her fruit tasted like, they'd be lining up each year, jostling to be the first to harvest!
Maybe it's the same with sumptuous Easter. Taste and see, say the scriptures. Maybe you have to taste before you can see.
What a beautiful little essay! Thanks. Good as a sermon.
That’s really a sad commentary, especially in these days of need. Folks are refusing fruit - because it’s work? OMG. Not only would you be helping yourself, or your friends and relatives, you’re helping an old widow.
Of course some people just know that fruit, unlike money, actually grows on trees. We met some kids that didn’t know eggs come out of chickens butts.
I did away with my raised beds. Putting in two 30’ X 20’ ground beds this year. And a dozen earth boxes in the front yard.
I want to build a chicken coop, but they are now illegal here.
Maybe I'm missing something, but outside of farm kids, wouldn't that be expected? I didn't learn that birds had a single orifice for all excretions, and in the case of females, reproduction, until comparative anatomy in college.
The oiginal owner of my place planted all kinds of fruit trees and vines. I do very little except cut the grass and trim the grape vines in the Winter.
They all produce a real bounty but unlie the author, I have very little trouble giving it away.
Well written and thought provoking essay. Thank you for posting.
When my mother died I had to throw out 2 wheelchairs in perfect condition because I couldnt find any takers.
Your Dad did the right thing, as has your Mom. That’s the end of the program! That’s what the message of the cross is all about. Many people aren’t as fortunate as you are as you see the big picture and wish things were different. Keep planting orange trees. Your fruit will get to the exact right individual when they are ready to pick it.
That’s grape ARBOR! LOL!!
You can take them to any convalescent home and they are glad to get them.
Past tense......could have. Sorry.
I would think it was common knowledge at one point. Now days, people think meat comes in a packages at the grocery store. They have no concept of how things are grown or made. They don’t know what it means to actually do things, make things, create things. The point being people’s ignorance of the process of egg laying, not necessarily the name of the anatomical part that I can’t even spell.
That’s sad. Joni Erickson-Tada’s group collects wheelchairs and refurbishes them for people that need them. We didn’t know about this group until recently when a friend of our started working with them.
A hair stylist with purple skin?
It's here, and free for the taking, but so many refuse to do so!
In the world the phrase, “if its too good to be true it probably isn't” reigns.
But,from he LORD comes no falsehood!
Pontious Pilot asked, “What is truth?”
This is truth!
John 3:16-21
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.[ 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
Glory to God!
He is Risen!
Not a problem in my neighborhood. I live in a rural area and anything I want to get rid of I haul to the end of my drive. Sometimes it's gone by the time I get back to the house.
Regards,
GtG
PS Around here it's called "gleaning" and it is a violation of local ordinances but lots of people with pick up trucks just grab and go...
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