Pink buds and blossoms line the path on either side of me as I stroll through our local orchards for some daily exercise. July will bring an abundance of juicy peaches from these tiny pink blooms. Our area produces some of the best peaches in the world and much tastier than the hard small replicas that are presently being offered in our supermarkets. The “real” ones are worth waiting for.
Cherries are my favorite, possibly due to the very short growing season curbing the duration of their availability. My Dad said you could not pick a Cherry off the tree until June 3rd! Those were the days when the Santa Clara Valley was chock full of orchards, growing cherries, plums and apricots. He grew a vegetable garden in our urban backyard and taught us the anticipation of waiting for each specimen to properly ripen before we could harvest or even taste.
Anticipation builds as I have learned to wait for the Bing Cherries even though they are a later crop. A fully ripened Bing will grace my lips first in a given year. The earlier varieties have their merits but my Bing Cherry ritual of waiting it out has rewards beyond compare.
Slowly the kinks work out of my body as I walk on and my thoughts drift to the time my Sis-in-law visited from Iowa. Off we went to the corner grocery store for munchies and she loaded my cart with six avocados that were $2.99 a piece! (That was when avocados were .50 cents when in season). I choked at the bill and every nerve in my body went off to think that we could not just make do with salsa under the circumstances. This incident was an eye opener to realize that the whole population did not understand the concept of waiting until the local harvest brought the abundance of fresh food. To know that some folks do not even consider the cost and waste of energy that occurs with each shipment of fresh produce.
Waiting – for food to ripen, for funds to be saved for a purchase, for the right job… It seems the lessons at hand have to do with learning patience… and to wait for what is best.
