Tags
backyards, bananas, birds, cherries, cherry trees, composting, eggs, Family, Gardening, onions
Isn’t it funny what we choose to remember, and how we remember it?
Case in point:
It’s ten years now since my Father passed away.
Yesterday, while walking the dogs I came within a cherry pit’s throw of the house that my father owned for two decades.
It’s always easy to spot from a distance because of the enormous cherry trees from his old backyard.
I remember when he planted those trees.
And every summer we would reap the rewards of his efforts to grow the finest bing, maraschino, and Blackstone cherries. I even remember a lovely white variety.
He’d spend his days spraying, trimming, and devising ways to keep the birds away from his hanging, copious clumps of red juicy splendour.
He was ahead of his time when it came to composting as he was doing it long before it became popular.
And of course, like most seniors stuck in their ways, he had to do things his own way, even when it came to…
Of all things…
Composting!
Once a week he would take the leavings from his kitchen and spread it smoothly around the base of the cherry trees. There would be banana peels, egg shells, cut celery stalks, apple cores, coffee grinds and onion peels.
The following memories are more vivid now than ever:
I can remember the sweetness of the cherries.
I can remember how his backyard was always littered with ladders.
I can even remember the cacophony of angry birds as Father chased them away from his precious cherry crop.
But what I remember the most…
Was surveying Father’s beautiful backyard and cherry trees swimming in his quickie compost mixture of banana peels, coffee grinds, egg shells, cut celery stalks, apple cores, and onion peel,
…looking like they had just vomited their breakfast.
Epiphabets 