Morning all. I am resisting opening the news or weather tabs to see what went down in Florida overnight until after my morning prompts. then I will pour the coffee and take a look. I hope for the best and hope everyone out there made it safely through the night. For now, the prompts. Timers set.
No idea where this is going, but it could be interesting to include in another story.
Thursday, October 10th: The figs were beginning to ripen.
The figs were beginning to ripen. I could see their green skins slowly develop brownish purple lines, the lines slowly widening as time passed until the entire fig was purple-y brown and the air was stained with the jammy scent. In addition to the color, the texture changed. They were no longer a hard a s a tear drop shaped golf ball, but soft with a little give when lightly squeezed.
Now was the time when I had to race the birds. I took out my basket and ladder, well aware of the feathered denizens of the area watching me, waiting for my back to be turned so they could take my harvest.
I had suffered through much with this fig tree. Many years I had only one or two fruits. Other years the weather grew too cold too fast for them to ripen and the figs simple fell off the tree, hard, green and of no use. This year, all of the elements combined. We had water, heat and cool all at the right times and I wasn’t willing to give up a single fig.
Considering that the local birds all looked as fat as stuffed turkeys due to the excellent conditions of the wild berries and fruits in the nearby woods I didn’t feel guilty for claiming this harvest. I shook my head as I placed the last of my figs in my bucket and pulled the plastic cover over it. The day before I actually saw a sparrow so fat it waddled.
I suspected that anything hunting the birds in the area was soon to be quite fat themselves. I knew we had hawks and other birds of prey as well as a few wild cats still in the mountains. “A hawk would have struggled to carry that sparrow off,’ I thought. “Well maybe not,” I corrected as I took my filled buckets into the house. I had seen one of the local hawks carry off a bunny a while back and while we did have a feral cat problem in the neighborhood for a while as the hawks grew in number that problem resolved itself.
I shucked my boots by the door, promising to go after the ladder later and took the buckets to the sink. As I washed and prepared the figs for my pot, intending to make a cauldron full of fig jam and then follow by using the jam in my homemade fig rolls, I wondered about the wildlife balance.
With the smaller birds proving such tempting targets would the predators go after them and spare the rabbits? It had happened before. When the bunnies had a bad year, there were a few warry survivors around. When they had a good year, I had to add a double layer of chicken wire to the planting beds so that I could spare at least a few of the vegetables the rabbit teeth.
Any leafy green was fair game. Even the chili peppers had to be protected until they grew large enough to start fruiting. Then one brave rabbit would try a bite of the plump and red pepper and word would soon spread through the bunny news network that they were not plants to be trifled with.
If I could get the peppers to the fruiting stage, they could protect themselves.
I rinsed and sliced. I tasted for sweetness and then added sugar to the pot with the fruit and turned the burner on. I kept the heat low and stirred often. I suspected I would need more fencing for the planting beds this year. I added it to my list.
Ten til Midnight 