T..........he pear tree

For many years early fall has given us the pear tree adventure. At the very end of August and through the month of September it gave us thousands, yes, thousands of pears, even though we did nothing to encourage the tree. How lucky, some of you are saying to yourselves! And to top it off, many of them were very good. However, one family can eat only so many pears and my canning days are over! Even with our giving them to neighbors, family and friends, there were always way too many. One year I threatened to put them on strangers' porches disguised as zucchinis! And, of course there were the thousands that fell from the tree and had to be picked up and disposed of, much to the chagrin of the garbage men. Also, the thousands of fallen pears were accompanied by thousands of wasps. In all the years I was only stung once!
However, this year there's been a change. One bright, early September day we heard a tremendous CRAAAAAAAAAK and a thump that actually shook the house! It turned out that the weight of the unripened pears actually cracked the tree in half and it had to be cut down. At first, I thought I'd be relieved to not have this extra work each year, but somehow it's made me a little sad! However, it did inspire me to make the pear scrubbies you see here to accompany the apples!


ps....the partridge was seen flying away with a strange smile on his face!