Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Fruit on my trees! A real windfall!

Plums!

90 years old?

First time in 15 years
Unreasonably excited about my apples and plums. None of these trees has ever fruited before.  

Red apples : I planted this tree 15 years ago (with 4 others) and till now they have proved a huge disappointment. 

Green apples : this tree is probably 90 years old and looks sickly. I've heard that a tree will fruit prolifically just before it dies, and I wonder if this is the case here. 

Plums : this tree seeded itself 5 years ago, along with half a dozen others. Or maybe they are suckers from a plum tree that I planted but which died.  A couple of people told me they were plum trees, but until now but I didn’t believe them.
Windfall is a strange word. The OED tells us that it has carried the meaning of a benefit which is unexpected and maybe undeserved, since 1542. Yet I'm told a windfall apple is actually a bad thing and not a good thing because it can't be stored due to bruising. How then did the word acquire its figurative meaning, and so early too?

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