I have been inundated with cooking apples this year.  Last year plumbs, this year apples.  It has been hard to keep up with stewing, pies, crumbles…I’ve even felt a bit resentful of all the extra work it has taken.

I have shared apples with neighbours, friends, my yoga group and still they keep coming.

And then

as I was collecting more to share

I stopped and actually looked at the tree.

Saw her gnarly branches

the ivy growing up her

all the apples still hanging

and I thought; ‘She has been sharing her apples with me for 25 years’ year in, year out, sometimes more, sometimes fewer, but always apples and what do I do for her. Nothing.

Beside her is her sister, they were both the only fruit trees in the garden when I moved in and her sister fell and died.

Nothing lasts for ever.

 

I have just been taking her for granted,

and the thought of not having apples and pies and crumbles and stewed fruit through the winter just made me unbelievably sad.

So since then I have got some manure to spread at the leaf line

and I have been walking down to see her for a minute or so each morning, barefoot, so I connect with the ground that hold her roots, to give her a hug and say thank you.

Just thank you.

Thank you so much for all your beneficence and generosity which I have taken for granted for so many years.

I see you.

I am in awe of you.

I thank you.

Thank you.

Farmotherlands is my award winning collection of poems about nature, farming, community and family. You can buy a copy here.

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Thanks for being here.
Julie

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