Garden of lost dreams

We have an awesome yard, half grass, half garden.  We have done a few things this year, but not much.  With moving in and unpacking (STILL not done with that) it has not been a major priority.  We will do a lot more next year.  But one thing we did was to put up swings in our tree.

 (Thanks for the infant swing, Mom!)  The kids were so excited when they saw what we'd done.  Of course, they got bored with them eventually, like they do with everything, but every once in a while we go outside and swing from the tree.  It just feels so cool to say that.

Our garden has 4 fruit trees.  When we moved in, the pear tree had dozens and dozens of cute little pears.  The cherry tree had thousands of cherries.  There were so many that I knew we'd never use them all.  I let Annalee spend many an hour out in the garden picking cherries (which weren't ripe) and playing in the flower beds.  One day she spent several hours out there with a neighbor girl.  Curious, I went out to see what had them so captivated.  They had climbed the white staircase plant shelf and were tossing things over the fence to the little girls at the neighbor's house.  I was sure the neighbor parents would not want hundreds of little cherries in their lawn, so I went to tell them to stop.  To my horror, I discovered that they'd been picking PEARS!  Pretty much every pear within reach of their hands had been picked.  I looked over the fence.  There were 25 or so tiny pears on the neighbor's lawn.  There were many more on the ground in my garden.

so.  furious.  must.  control.  temper.

I calmly sent the other neighbor girl home.  I picked up my beloved baby pears and took them inside on the very slim hope that they would ripen.  (They didn't.)

 Then Annalee was ordered to pick up the sticks the willow tree drops on the lawn as punishment.  It would have taken her 5 minutes, but she refused.  Hence ensued a battle of wills the likes of which we had never known.  It was a pretty awful day.  I made her stay outside until she finished it, and she ended up spending about 5 hours in the backyard because she simply refused to do it.  It was a nice, not-too-hot day in June.  I brought her lunch outside at lunch time.  She threw her PBJ sandwich on the ground and stomped on it.  Eventually she decided to eat it.  I brought her water.  She thought she had me by claiming she had to go potty, but guess what?  We have a porta-potty that we keep in the trunk for emergencies.  I brought that outside too.  She was soooo mad, but still refused to pick up the sticks.  She had to use the potty twice outside.  I kept calmly telling her that she would not come inside until she picked up the sticks, even if I had to bring her bed outside at bedtime.  I guess she finally believed me, because she picked up the sticks.  Awful, drama-filled day.  But I was proud of myself for not reacting out of the very great anger I felt.  I stayed calm and gave her a fitting punishment.  Oh, she also got grounded from the garden.  Now she can't go in there without permission.

A few weeks later an unbelievable wind storm passed through.  I have never seen anything like it.  It nearly did-in the rest of my poor pears.

 And my...is this honeysuckle?  It knocked the trellis down.

 Eventually the remaining pears ripened.  Some of them were behemoths!  But we only got 11.  They were soooooo yummy!  (After you cut the worms out.)  The store-bought pears have nothing on tree-ripened ones!

 Around the same time, our peach tree ripened.  We got a lot of fruit but it was comically small--about the size of a plum.  But they were HEAVENLY!  The best peaches I have ever had!  And they had the singular distinction of being the only fruit in my garden unaffected by worms.  (I guess they don't like peaches.)  The thousands of cherries?  Soooooo sad.  All wormy.  We will definitely spray next year!

Right now I am waiting for my fuji apples to ripen.  The worms went crazy with them and more than half of the fruit started rotting on the tree.  I removed the worst of it and have a faint hope that we will be able to salvage some fruit by cutting out the worms.

Some day this garden will be amazing!