Pecans and Peaches
Last weekend while pruning, I contemplated a peach tree that had bloomed due to unseasonably warm temperatures. With over thirty fruit trees, why did just this one decide to flower? Surely the tree’s DNA must know this is risky business. It’s mid-February. The chance of snow and freezing temperatures is about ninety-five percent. Down here we don’t plant a thing until we see buds on the mesquites. That’s at least six weeks away. You would think a species that has been around for 8,000 years would know doing such a thing is dangerous.
The beauty and joy this one tree brought to our otherwise naked orchard on a cloudy day reminded me of Ron’s mom, Natalie, who loved being outside working with us. She would have picked up every branch she came across and scolded us for ignoring the tiny twigs at our feet. Natalie is in a nursing home now up in Phoenix; close to Ron’s brother. For many years she lived just up the road with her second husband, W.H. who also now lives in a nursing home. Natalie has Alzheimer’s and access to proper healthcare is a serious problem down here. The closest in-home nursing services are two hours away. Deciding whether to quit work to take care of family members or to place them in a nursing home is a common hardship most of us have had to face.
When Natalie was still at home, our schedule included plenty of breaks so she wouldn’t become bored and wander off. The last vivid memory I have of her helping in the orchard was after harvesting pecans. I set her up with three buckets. One with the pecans we had just picked, one for the husks, and one for the shelled nuts. We worked side by side, and when she got the hang of it, I went about my chores. About a half-hour later I checked on her progress. The buckets contained a hodgepodge of pecans and husks. When I asked her how she was doing, she raised a pecan and said, “I can’t remember where these go.” Instead of dwelling on it, I stacked the buckets on the back porch, and we went for a walk.
The disease was whittling away at her, and she’d become obsessed with picking things up off the ground. Bottle tops, pieces of wire, shards of worn glass, baling twine; anything that didn’t look like it belonged in the dirt. That day she picked up a rusted tin can and handed it to me. Looking confused she said, “I don’t know why I do this. I can’t stop.”
Searching the ground for tools we’d used throughout the day, I nearly ran into the low hanging branches of the peach tree. The wind was blowing hard and several of the blossoms were strewn throughout the orchard. I picked one up. Maybe, like Natalie, the tree didn’t know why it did what it did. I knew if she had been there with me, she would have insisted we work together to collect every blossom. In the house we would have set them in a bowl to admire.
