The Business of Squirrels
Check out my sage! It's like whoa.
So our neighbors back of the alley have this really big fruit tree in their back yard. I can see it from my kitchen, over the top of our garage.
It wasn't until the last week or so that I noticed that it's just sagging with fruit.
La Cyn and I were chatting in the kitchen after she got home from work last night, as we do, and I said, "What kind of fruit tree is that? I've been staring at it for weeks now."
"I dunno. But it's dropping fruit in the alley like crazy."
Of course, I had to go out and investigate directly. The alley, and our neighbor's parking spaces, had a liberal scattering of apricots. Huh.
Tonight when La Cyn came home, the neighbor's brother, P, was out there, cleaning up the piles of apricots.
What a waste!
La Cyn introduced herself and asked P about the apricots. P doesn't live in the house now, just his brother and mother do, but he said that his mother brought the pit for this tree over from Greece 30some years ago. It's a Turkish apricot. He also said that whatever fruit we could gather from the tree we were welcome to.
The branch that nearly touches our garage and overhangs the alley.
However, he cautioned us not to harvest from the branches overhanging their yard and then took us inside to show us the three beehives his brother keeps. BEEHIVES!! The entire backyard is full to bursting with all variety of flowering plants and herbs and the heaviest branches overhang the beehives (I didn't take pictures of the yard and hives, it seemed rude).
I don't mind leaving these fruits to the bees. They all end up on the ground anyway, as the squirrels chew away at the top to get at the pits, then let the fruit fall to the ground. So our only competition is the Squirrel Mafia. We have a mission this weekend: Get the Apricots! Bake the Apricots!
I asked P to let his brother know that I'd be very interested in some of his honey, oh, can you imagine honey made from bees who feast on a varied garden and a big pile of fermenting apricots? I'll be happy to do a trade of baked goods for honey.
La Cyn has already begun her Wile E. Coyote diagramming of how we'll outsmart the Squirrel Mafia and Not Get Stung By Bees while Fetching Apricots. This is gonna be... an adventure.