On Fruit Trees

I'm not quite sure how the fruit tree got the choke-hold on me, but I have been pretty convinced for quite a while that I want fruit trees to be in my life forever. Jessica + Fruit Trees = Eternal Bliss.

I'll be in the house that I'm at right now maybe two years, maybe three, maybe four? I dunno. But probably not long and I knew that coming in. So I asked my father-in-law before I moved here if it would be worth it for me to plant fruit trees if I'd be gone before they even got productive. He said that no matter what, I'd be planting fruit trees that somebody would be enjoying, so didn't that make it worth it?

I have two apple trees and two pear trees so far. When I bought them the lady at the nursery said that for the first two or three years I should pluck the fruit off of the trees when the fruit got about marble-sized so the trees could put all their strength into establishing themselves. I can't say that at the moment she told me that I didn't droop and consider bagging the tree idea altogether. But I wanted trees so I got them. And I wanted good trees, so this spring I plucked, trying to keep myself from counting how many apples and pears I wouldn't have. And you know, after the plucking I think I just loved my trees more.

I found that this hankering for fruit trees isn't about how many bottles of pears and applesauce I might have on my shelves. But it's about watching something, under my care, grow and thrive. And if I do a good enough job, maybe the next families who live in our house will have kids who will remember a childhood of playing in the shade of my fruit trees and eating apples and pears off of low branches.