Thursday 7th October 2021, 5.30pm (day 3,696)
The last of the plums have finally been harvested off the tree. I’m leaving the rest for the wasps: this one’s already made a start on the bounty, as you can see.
The wasp in the plum
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: fruit
Moth, the sequel (with plums)
Monday 6th September 2021, 5.05pm (day 3,665)
Emboldened by the appearance of its fellow moth five weeks ago, this one flew over and demanded I did its close-ups. The plums in the background prove that the tree has eventually borne fruit, despite half of it giving up the ghost.
Unless I’ve miscounted — but you can’t prove this, so might as well take my word for it — this is the 1,499th picture on this blog to be taken in Hebden Bridge. Number 1,500 will be along before the week is out.
Plum preservation
Thursday 19th August 2021, 12.05pm (day 3,647)
Despite the propping up (an action which probably saved most of the remainder), half our plum tree has given up the ghost; the weight of the fruit was too much. So today I had a great many green plums to process. It was the fate of these ones to end up in a demijohn with sugar and vodka. Apparently, in a year, we’ll have slivovitz. Or, I’ll forget about them, stashed in the closet as they now are, and our descendants will rediscover them in forty years, playing host to entire new ecosystems.
Tuco fruits
Monday 9th August 2021, 1.35pm (day 3,637)
Our latest chilli plant. It was Clare who christened it ‘Tuco’, after Tuco Salamanca, the ridiculously fiery Mexican in the first couple of seasons of Breaking Bad. Only we have already eaten one of the three fruits it has produced so far, and it turned out to be very mild, so perhaps it’s misnamed. We should call it Jesse Pinkman instead, perhaps.
Propped plums
Monday 5th July 2021, 9.35am (day 3,602)
The plum tree is bearing a heavy load this year, and needed help. Banyan trees have worked out how to do this kind of thing for themselves, but not yet this species. The working week started with a trip to the builders’ merchants in order to acquire some long, stout bits of wood to prop up the most creaking branches.
Wild strawberry
Wednesday 23rd June 2021, 3.15pm (day 3,590)
This is not an eventful period of my life. This is nothing to do with the Great Fear, it’s just how the wheel is turning at the moment. But at least the wild strawberries are out, and waiting to be found.
Going to waste
Wednesday 16th September 2020, 10.50am (day 3,310)
This little stand of apple trees outside the Ellen Wilkinson Building on campus sees its crop go mostly to waste even in a normal year. And as it is right now, the whole campus is neglected and starting to rot away. Such a waste.
Blackberries and cream
Monday 10th August 2020, 7.15pm (day 3,273)
Ahhh. Rubus plicatus, one of the countryside’s great free bounties. They have found evidence in the stomachs of prehistoric peat bog victims that we’ve been eating these beauties for thousands of years. Who am I to go against such tradition.
Garden fruits
Wednesday 22nd July 2020, 4.35pm (day 3,254)
Late July, a time of year when certain things are fated to happen. I have time off work and do as little as I can, and the garden begins producing fruit. Fate has done its duty with both in 2020, despite everything.
A is for Apple
Thursday 24th October 2019, 1.35pm (day 2,982)
Hard to caption this photo as anything much other than ‘APPLE!’. For appley (apply? Apple-y?) it most certainly is. Not that it’s sitting comfortably on this tree any more; it was definitely picked today.
Being 42 