Walk, Interrupted

So I've been gradually recovering from my fight with gravity. Although gravity won and I may have a torn meniscus to show for my defiance of her laws, I have been more mobile of late. And since yesterday was so lovely and mild -- hiding mischievously as it does what is to come in a few months -- I decided to risk a walk down the driveway. Aside from a stray deer, or a revengeful Muslim come to look us up, what had I to fear? Nuthin' much, as long I kept my eyes on the road.

So OffIWent, carrying my cane to bat the occasional piece of gravel in a mock game of senile field hockey. Lo and behold, at the first turn, didn't I come upon the wood pear tree. My favorite tree on our driveway. The first to green out, the last to color up and drop its leaves...and this year, laden with fruit.

These pears look like the Asian ones -- those pricey round things in the produce department -- only they're quite a bit smaller. And they're grittier, too. But much, much sweeter. Unlike cultivated pears, they're not taken from the tree while they still feel like hardballs. And you don't have to wrap them in paper to have them ripen. The only problem is that they do ripen so much later than regular pears that one can get impatient waiting for them to drop. They are quite high up, too, so it's not easy to reach them. Especially if one has been threatened with death if one attempts to climb a ladder.

Lucky for me, I'd brought the cane. Whacking a closely growing sapling, I managed to hit the branches of fruit and knock a few off. But once they landed, I could see they were unripe and would have to be cooked to be edible. Searching around for a stray one, hoping perhaps a ripe one had rolled into the draw nearby, I came across a lovely golden fruit. Parked next to it was a hungry box turtle...a terrapin, says the Baron, but you know what I mean.

Let's see: terapins can go on land and water; turtles (as in "Painted Turtles" only in water)...and I forget the ones found only on land...?tortoises?? Anyway, they all have hard carapaces and they eat anything that doesn't move. Sounds like some of my relatives.

If figures that this guy had the only good pear. I left him to it. Tomorrow I shall walk down to see if he's still there and how much of the pear remains. Who knows, perhaps another golden globe will have dropped?

Most definitely, another sweet October day will have melted away by then.