I have an accidental orchard. On the 7500 square foot city lot that my house sits on, there are no less than 13 Italian Prune trees. I did not plant them, they are the volunteers , spread from Italian immigrant's trees some hundred and twenty years ago. Local legend has it that Italians lived at the bottom of the hill. Scandinavians lived at the top. The Italians had wine and song and the Scandinavians in their taciturn solemnity, loved their neighbor's plums and the trees migrated to the Nordic elevations of Pigeon Hill. These trees produce delicious, sweet, delights that make you stop and contemplate the universe. I do almost nothing to these crazy trees that spread like weeds. I occasionally cut water spouts, suckers and try to keep the trees from growing too tall. Other than that I watch them grow. In late August I pick hundreds of pounds of amazing fruit. Picking is usually haphazard and the trees are strange shaped and everything feels like chaos while you are doing it. Something happens while reaching up and grabbing a handful of perfect plums, that feels ethereal. I am not by nature a very spiritual person, I like to know things for certain, but during the harvest, it's impossible not to feel grateful and in awe of a universe that gifts such abundance in the face of human indifference and apathy. We give them all away to neighbors, food banks and one neighbor works with Afghan refugees, who apparently love them. I think of all the people who will enjoy these bags of plums and the simple fact that I love seeing these gifts enjoyed. The black dog is ascendant in my life, and it's easy to get tightly wrapped in my personal depression, and the destructive spiral of politics but this insane bounty of the weird weed trees, is my cure that also tastes great.
