Baby in the Tree

This may not be a very good summer for our plum tree. Just when the flowers were turning into baby fruits, some heavy winds hit our backyard and I'm afraid many young plums got swept away.

But at least one survived, and when I spotted it recently, I smiled.

The plums from this tree are an unusual variety for this region -- large and purple, sweet and heavy. When they ripen, they force the tree's branches to hang low. The trick is to pick them before they fall, because they easily bruise and in the few feet to earth, their tender skin breaks.

I'm often out there to get them before those falls, or to gather them soon afterward.

I love these plums. For years now, they have sweetened my Julys. But this year, there will only be a few, including the youngster pictured above.

I'll be keeping my eye on her, as I'm pretty sure she would rather end up in my belly than rotting on the soil, skin split, succulence entered by ants, all flesh stripped by scavengers and garbage creatures.

I, by contrast, adore her shape and sweetness and know how to honor that. Not to mention how to include her essence as I jar one of my very rare bottles of plum jam.

Alas, this year there will probably be no jam. Only the momentary pleasure of sweetness as one plum's flesh goes down my throat.

What a pity.

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