The Old Pear Tree

The Old Pear Tree

I was very privileged while growing up, whether I knew it at the time, or not. We had every type of fruit tree or plant available to us and we could eat our way through the day. I should name all we had: cherry, peach, apricot, apple, pear, mulberry, blackberry, raspberry, hazelnut, walnuts, and those luscious big juicy purple grapes. The only rule was if any animal, especially a bear was chowing down on the harvest we were to let it be, because that was their food source. As an adult I understand the “bear-rule.”

There were the different kinds apple and cherry trees, which I didn’t know had different attributes for cooking, I just knew that the one big apple tree near the pine tree grove on the property, was the best red eating apples and the best climbing tree in the entire 50 acres we lived on. The one cherry tree my sister climbed all the time because she loved the cherries. For me the cherries from that tree were too tart, so I stuck to my apple tree.

The pear tree, wasn’t as appealing. Most of the trees on the property were old, but the pear tree went straight up and in order to get a pear from it we either had to throw rocks or branches to hit a pear, or wait until it actually fell to the earth—my grandmother failed to give us any clue about “sling shots” at the time, you have to wonder on that. The pear tree was one of those trees you checked every day for what fell onto your level. Added to that was the fact that bees swarmed the over-ripe pears and it wasn’t the best tree on the property.

All the other trees, gladly shared their fruit on our short-height level so we didn’t need to survive on pears, which was a good thing. I often feel sorry for children today who only get store-bought fruit because the taste is not the same as fresh off the tree. The only exception is blueberries and strawberries. We only had wild strawberries, which were so small you only got a pinch of taste, and wild teaberries, which I was always suspicious of for some reason or other—my sister loved them, even today my sister loves the taste of wintergreen, where I love the taste of peppermint.

As an adult, I found myself living in a house that was incredibly rural. How rural you might ask. I use to tell people who came to visit me: drive to this town, fill up your gas tank and turn left; go over two mountains (watch your speed after going over the first mountain, because the speed changes for three blocks in the valley of the two mountains and the local cop sits there clocking speed—I always suspected that was how the small town made their revenue for the year to keep taxes low; after going over the second mountain, you’ll begin to ascend gradually up the third mountain and at the flat top of that third mountain, you’ll see a big field, surrounded by big fields, can’t miss it. My house is at one end of the big field and a church with a parking lot sits at the other end of the Big Field.

People would get to my house and ask: “Where do the people come from who go to that church? I would respond: “Out there, scattered throughout the area.” Or, “What is beyond your house?” I would respond “The same of what you just traveled through over the two mountains, and what is here surrounding my house.”

The fact remains that I loved my Big Field. I had vistas from every window in my house because I was the highest point in the area, which wasn’t the greatest point to be during horrendous thunderstorms or snow storms. Gale-force winds were a norm for that Big Field and I would pray and hope the roof of that house had been nailed on with spikes with hooks on the end so the roof stayed attached to the house. I remember getting a call from one of my neighbors (two fields over) to get out of the house a tornado was on its way and my property had already been hit by one tonado that took down the grove of pine trees in the back yard—so I dutifully went outside and looked for the tornado, which wasn’t the brightest thing to do. I believe you’re suppose to go to the basement, or some other cautionary place in the house, but I stood on my deck looking for the wayward storm coming my way.

But the warning about the tornado explained why the old pear tree next to the driveway, was growing sideways. Remember that I only knew our straight-high pear tree from my youth, and to see this pear tree short-squat and growing sideways nearly touching the ground was a novelty for me. I loved that tree next to the driveway in fact, so much, that I wanted to paint a picture of that tree and write a poem about it. There was so much to love about it.

This particular pear tree was the home of our neighborhood rabbit. It was the only rabbit we had, because the fields surrounding us fed the myriad of hawks, eagles, foxes, coyotes, and bobcats (the state game commission was in denial that we also had some sort of big mountain cat and I missed my opportunity to prove it to them with the tracks in the snow that one was tracking one of my deer—who by the way, would munch on the pear tree and fruit).

My dog and Macaw would keep me appraised of who was in our yard and when. The turkeys always got my Macaw screaming. Keegan-dog was more interested in the rabbit (he was a mix of black lab and beagle so he was bred to hunt rabbits and relished that job). Keegan loved to eat and rub himself in our resident rabbit’s poop—it was his daily job to clean our yard of it. Keegan, also loved bear poop. Yes, we had a resident bear.

Our bear had a two-week circuit. He would wander around our yard grazing on all we had to offer, the black walnuts, the apples and pears, and apparently any kind of grub, or living thing in my yard. He marked my tree line as his and once he moved on we wouldn’t see him for two weeks. Keegan wouldn’t challenge our bear, he would just track it, especially if he got loose from the house, and rolled in it’s poop—I think the proper word is “scat,” but that belies the true smell of bear-poopie.

Keegan had so many baths per week because of bear-poop, I would admonish him that most dogs didn’t get bathed as often as he did. When other people complain their dogs follow them into the bathroom or into the bathtub and shower, I merely comment that they’re doing their dog duties all wrong—most of my dogs avoid me when I enter the bathroom—you have to wonder why, right???? I can’t even say the word “bath” in my house, because even the word sends my dogs running with the look of “…it’s EVERY DOG FOR ITSELF--FEET DO YOUR THING—RUN—CODE RED!”

I tried every dog shampoo out there. None of them, and I mean none of them, including Skunk-Away, gets rid of the smell of bear-poopie. Bear poop is vile and potent stuff when on a dog. You cannot get that smell of dog collars, either. Even using straight Clorox on the collar doesn't work, and I tried. I would just buy new collars, five at a time, to keep them on hand. I finally told the vet, whether right or wrong for the health of Keegan-dog, I was using Dawn dish detergent for his daily scrub-down—I just can’t live with a dog inside the house that smells like “bear scat.”

As for my beautiful pear tree, one day a loving neighbor thought he was doing me a favor by chopping it down and getting rid of it because it was old and horizontal to the ground, literally fallen over. One morning my heart was shocked and grieved when I noticed it was not there anymore. I worried about my resident rabbit that had lost its shelter, and my herd of deer that got their food from the tree. Besides which, I missed what I saw as beauty in that old brave, thriving pear tree that survived tornados, storms, winters and lightening strikes, just like I did throughout my long and ordinary life.