What season is this?

Well, hello there, beautiful! 😍

Apparently, after a dry season, when it finally rains, some of the plants get fooled into thinking it’s spring. So, my (non-Granny Smith) apple tree is confused. It has the last of the apples still clinging to some branches, while other branches are blossoming!

In some ways, it feels like spring, like something new is happening…

My son just graduated from University last week. Congratulations to him! 🎓 It’s a new season for his life.

It’s a new season for our chickens, too.

After the great chicken massacre of 2023, which happened at the beginning of August, we have new life in our chicken field. One of the (2) lone survivors of the massacre was Tweetie. She was sitting on eggs. Such a mystery how a sitting hen got left, but there she was, just sitting on those eggs. She’s a smart one, with her eye to the sky whenever the hawks are around.

It seems the slaughter was partially instigated by hawks, but who ever heard of hawks hunting in groups? It appears most unusual. And to take out 10 chickens in one fell swoop, leaving some of them headless, removing some without a trace and merely slaughtering others and leaving them in their entirety?

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but I am come that they might have life and have it to the full…

John 10:10

Evil, that’s what it was. Evil.

Baby chicks, on the other hand, pure cuteness 😍

By their fruits will you know them…

Now, I’m no professional at apple identification, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a Granny Smith. It’s from the tree I told you about a couple of years ago when it resurrected, in my post entitled “God Thumb“. We thought we’d lost it when all of a sudden it was covered with leaf buds. This year, it is loaded down to the ground with apples, many of them now ripe. (You can tell apples are ripe when their seeds turn brown/black, and that’s the case here.) The apples taste good. In fact, I’d say they are delicious, but I don’t want you thinking I’ve identified which variety they are. 😆 However, they are not Granny Smith, like I thought when I was planting the tree!

Ah, well, I guess I’m not going back to Aldi to ask for my 5 (or less?) Euro back.

I keep dreaming of growing nectarines, peaches, or apricots, but my reality is that I’m swimming in these golden plums. I think they might be “Mirabel,” but a friend/frenemy insisted that they are too large to be Mirabels. Well, this year, they had lots of water, almost too much. In addition to the chicken poo fertiliser, they were well fed and grew large and sweet and juicy.

Sometimes, when I sink my teeth into a particularly scrumptious one, I remember the principle that I’m trying to learn to follow of appreciating that which is, not always striving to more.

Gratefulness gardening. Gratefulness parenting. Gratefulness existing.

When that sweet juice runs over my tongue, down into my stomach and drips off my fingers and onto the ground (or, more likely, my clothes), I’m struck by the realisation that apricots don’t grow well here, neither do peaches and nectarines. And I doubt that, even if I could get a few to grow, that they’d hold a candle to these delicious native plums.

It reminds me of my task as a parent: discovering what it is that my kids were created to do and be. It’s not up to me to tell them exactly what to do, but to equip them for the paths they are designed to take.

Launching another into university life makes me introspective. I hope that I’ve reflected well to him his strengths, his gifts, his specialties and prepared him for the challenges of this coming year, indeed these coming years, plural.

Plum sherbet from a “Nourishing Traditions” recipe. Scrumptious 😋