Little divine surprises
Two weeks ago, Tommy Fox died; when you get a phone call from an ER at 3:something a.m. inquiring about 'code status' it's never a good thing. If the hospital had been either of the ones within blocks of us it would have been much simpler, but he was out of the city, at least half an hour away. By the time my husband was able to answer his other obligations in the morning and take off, Tommy passed away, peacefully they said, but alone, before Hubby arrived. The same day, there was word that our sister-in-law's family had been in a major accident and her sister was dead and the sister's daughter and seven children were injured, taken to multiple hospitals in serious condition. Two of them, who were critical, are still in the hospital, improving but not yet okay. I had some other things going on that left me physically strained, and I was pretty wrung out. I got back to this space, sort of, mentally but not actually. Thus the time lapse.
But there was a discovery here, a few weeks ago, that I wanted to share.
In the departure from our house, we had to leave behind two apple trees. One, that was nearly destroyed by a careless neighbor boy, had been planted as a gift in the front yard. But the first, one of the trees we put in when we first got the house, was chosen because Hubby grew up with this variety, a yellow transparent, and it was his very favorite apple. You have to understand that this man doesn't like apples generally enough to get excited about them, and he doesn't like them crisp. I know, he's strange. He likes golden delicious, otherwise he likes them tart, an odd combination of preferences.
His family had a yellow transparent tree when he was growing up, and he wanted to have one for his own home, so he went looking for one and put it in the ground. You will never see the variety commercially, perhaps rarely in a farmer's stand, because they are very soft. They don't hold up in transport. My sister's place in CA had a mystery tree and I was not the only one who was able to i.d. it as a yellow transparent (you can read the comments). As I told her, they go from ripe to ruined very fast, but they make wonderful applesauce. With the other tree, I used brown sugar and spices, but with the transparent, just white sugar. They are very tart and very soft. They are delicious in recipes and pie, but they will not hold up as slices in layers, they will just disintegrate. Still yummy, though.
This tree, unlike the little one in front, did not produce a lot in very many years. Five years ago, both trees went gangbusters and we had 22 pints of applesauce from the transparent tree, 38 (plus other uses) from the red gravenstein. Most years, we just had enough transparents for him to eat some, maybe cook up a saucepan to polish off.
This year, when we would no longer be in residence by the time the fruit was ripe, the transparent tree was loaded. But they weren't going to be our apples.
Rats.
But a funny thing happened, in this place the Lord put us. I loved the flower-filled view from the window in the entryway, with a white blossomed tree and the edge of a front camellia bush. There was what appeared to be an identical white-flowering tree just over the fence, at the property behind us. The flowers were eventually gone, the shade was nice, and then...I went out the kitchen door one afternoon and glanced up and realized that there were apples forming on that tree next door. I had no idea!
I walked through the house and out the front door to stand under the tree on our property, to see if it had apples too. Nope. I guess they weren't identical after all. But the tree behind us has branches falling over our side of the fence, and the property--a house now divided into three units-- is vacant while various repairs are being made. It belongs to the same owners as ours, so we have been told to go ahead and pick the apples because there's no sense in them going to waste. So I have been watering it by throwing the hose over the fence, and watching. We wondered what kind of apples they would turn out to be. It looked like they might be ripening early.
Last week, Saturday night before all the wrenching events of the following hours happened, Hubby picked one up off the ground, and declared that it looked like a transparent. He bit into it, and said no question. What are the odds?
I imagined our Father just waiting to smile when this little gift would be discovered. This is a big old tree. We'll need ladders. No one else has claim on it right now, and it should be ready to pick in 5-10 days, depending on if it gets hot again. I even have a friend who will help with the picking and the canning--I don't have Carole this year!--and who can share in the harvest. (And at the back corner, also hanging over our side of the fence, is a pear tree. I always wanted a pear tree...so it's getting watered from our house too.) It's delightful.
But there was a discovery here, a few weeks ago, that I wanted to share.
In the departure from our house, we had to leave behind two apple trees. One, that was nearly destroyed by a careless neighbor boy, had been planted as a gift in the front yard. But the first, one of the trees we put in when we first got the house, was chosen because Hubby grew up with this variety, a yellow transparent, and it was his very favorite apple. You have to understand that this man doesn't like apples generally enough to get excited about them, and he doesn't like them crisp. I know, he's strange. He likes golden delicious, otherwise he likes them tart, an odd combination of preferences.
His family had a yellow transparent tree when he was growing up, and he wanted to have one for his own home, so he went looking for one and put it in the ground. You will never see the variety commercially, perhaps rarely in a farmer's stand, because they are very soft. They don't hold up in transport. My sister's place in CA had a mystery tree and I was not the only one who was able to i.d. it as a yellow transparent (you can read the comments). As I told her, they go from ripe to ruined very fast, but they make wonderful applesauce. With the other tree, I used brown sugar and spices, but with the transparent, just white sugar. They are very tart and very soft. They are delicious in recipes and pie, but they will not hold up as slices in layers, they will just disintegrate. Still yummy, though.
This tree, unlike the little one in front, did not produce a lot in very many years. Five years ago, both trees went gangbusters and we had 22 pints of applesauce from the transparent tree, 38 (plus other uses) from the red gravenstein. Most years, we just had enough transparents for him to eat some, maybe cook up a saucepan to polish off.
This year, when we would no longer be in residence by the time the fruit was ripe, the transparent tree was loaded. But they weren't going to be our apples.
Rats.
But a funny thing happened, in this place the Lord put us. I loved the flower-filled view from the window in the entryway, with a white blossomed tree and the edge of a front camellia bush. There was what appeared to be an identical white-flowering tree just over the fence, at the property behind us. The flowers were eventually gone, the shade was nice, and then...I went out the kitchen door one afternoon and glanced up and realized that there were apples forming on that tree next door. I had no idea!
I walked through the house and out the front door to stand under the tree on our property, to see if it had apples too. Nope. I guess they weren't identical after all. But the tree behind us has branches falling over our side of the fence, and the property--a house now divided into three units-- is vacant while various repairs are being made. It belongs to the same owners as ours, so we have been told to go ahead and pick the apples because there's no sense in them going to waste. So I have been watering it by throwing the hose over the fence, and watching. We wondered what kind of apples they would turn out to be. It looked like they might be ripening early.
Last week, Saturday night before all the wrenching events of the following hours happened, Hubby picked one up off the ground, and declared that it looked like a transparent. He bit into it, and said no question. What are the odds?
I imagined our Father just waiting to smile when this little gift would be discovered. This is a big old tree. We'll need ladders. No one else has claim on it right now, and it should be ready to pick in 5-10 days, depending on if it gets hot again. I even have a friend who will help with the picking and the canning--I don't have Carole this year!--and who can share in the harvest. (And at the back corner, also hanging over our side of the fence, is a pear tree. I always wanted a pear tree...so it's getting watered from our house too.) It's delightful.
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