Bounty

I am so grateful.

There is a gravenstein apple tree in my life just now. It is an older, full-sized tree loaded with bright green apples, some blushing shyly in pink. The tree stands central and majestic in the garden of a friend's home I am stewarding while they are away, and its very bounty speaks to me.

Last night, the boys, Seda, and I loaded into the car (we did have many boxes of apples to transport, after all) and crossed four blocks to the tree that awaited our picking. We discovered that one of its great branches had broken in the waiting. Apples hung from heaven to earth with a painful reminder in splintered wood that so much fruit can be too much to hold. Windfall apples underfoot across the sparse lawn settled into boxes to be sauced this week. The boys took turns with the "apple picker" tool comprised of an open metal cage on a long stick to collect the harvest. Seda climbed with boxes up and down our tall orchard ladder.

I sat on the grass, so many apples spread before me. I sorted "B grade" apples into boxes for dehydrating, "C grade" for saucing, and I wrapped "A grade" apples individually in newspaper for autumn and winter eating. As my family laid them before me, I marveled at our teamwork, a harvest in itself. The apples, in both quantity and quality, warmed my heart with hope for a cold winter ahead. We will be fed.

"Look up!" said Sam. The summer sun had released its candy pink hold on the clouds overhead, and as the golden globe had slipped under land, only a blanket of sky behind held the memory of its light. Now the clouds took a monotone blue grey over a background of bright orange gold, fading to an other-worldly lavender, and finally to blue as the scene stretched above us. We all paused to watch.

Almost too much beauty to take in. We packed up our load and headed home, bleary eyed, into dishoveled beds. The house had been ignored in the presence of summer picking. This morning, I awoke in my smallish bed that is piled with four days clean laundry to fold. Both of my boys, after various middle of the night reasonings, snored beside me. And the dog.

So much bounty. May my heart find strength to hold the weight of it all.