Pears of the Day – October 9, 2018
My vision isn’t as good as it used to be. I can see but only wearing exactly the right glasses which these days, is nigh unto impossible. I can get close, but never exactly right. I can read with no glass. Middle vision, I use computer glasses but right now, they are a bit too strong and I need a new checkup and new eyeglasses — for which I don’t have money.
Without sharp middle vision, I can’t clearly see the LCD on my camera. If I wear my distance glasses, I can’t even read the dials on my camera, let alone focus a lens.
So I am dependent on autofocus. Which, fortunately, is a lot better than it used to be — depending on the camera I’m using and of course, the lens.
So here’s the story of the pears.
Garry and I are at River Bend Park. It is part of a long string of parks surrounding the Blackstone River, all loosely titled “the Blackstone Valley Historic Corridor.” One step to the left of a national park.
All the parks are linked by the river or the adjacent canal, or one of the river’s many tributaries. Then there are the streams, swamps, other smaller (and sometimes nameless) rivers, lakes, and ponds. This particular section of the park includes a big barn build during the 1700s on land that was a farm. Hence the name River Bend Farm.
I’m looking at a big tall tree which, as far as I can tell, is full of big yellow flowers. And then, while I was trying to find the flowers, I heard a “thunk.”
Thunk? Flowers do not make a “thunk” when they fall. Flowers are inclined to float gently to the grass. This “flower” hit the ground solidly. Realizing that I wasn’t looking for yellow flowers, I pulled out a small camera with a really long lens and eventually realized that all those big yellow flowers were actually bright pears. It was … a pear tree.
I took pictures. I was not sure I got any sharp ones, but I shot anyway. It turns out, I got more than a few and they are pretty good.
Later on, Garry said that he knew it was a pear tree because he narrowly avoided getting bonked on the head by a falling pear.
Funny about it being a pear tree because I used to have a huge old pear tree in my backyard in Hempstead. That was at the first house I lived in as a married woman. The pear tree was a cross between a Bartlett and a Bosc and produced the best pears I’ve ever eaten. It produced tons of them.
The neighbors all came by with baskets to collect pears. I still had tons of them remaining. I made pear pies, pickled pears, gingered pears and of course, we ate them. Despite that, there were bushels of pears remaining.
In the course of events, we all learned a great truth. Do not sit under the tree when the pears are full-grown. Because one of those big babies — completely unripe and hard — falling from the upper branches could knock your head in.
Categories: #BlackstoneRiver, #Flowers, #Photography, Trees
Speaking of pears, our daughter made a lovely salad of pears, lettuce, walnuts and blue cheese. It was delicious.
Leslie
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I still love pears, even though I overdosed on them a bit while we lived in that house. But after we moved, I really missed the pears. I’ve never had better ones!
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They are so good right now.
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Delightful photos for this week. Thanks Marilyn 😀
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Sorry, they aren’t flowers. But I really thought they WERE flowers … until I heard that “thunk” on the ground. My eyes couldn’t tell, but my ears screamed FRUIT!
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Sounds as dangerous as lurking under a walnut tree full of squirrels…
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Except lemme tellya, a full-size pear that isn’t ripe and falls 30-feet is a deadly weapon!
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So..,no Partridge up there???
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None that I could find, but maybe one or two will find it. Before Christmas. I don’t even know if we have partridges around here. Turkeys, yes. But not partridges.
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So, let’s see…, sung “… and a turkey in a pear tree” Hmm, Might work?
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And then, you could grab the turkey and eat it for dinner. While enjoying your five golden rings.
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I’m with ya there as a Partridge is hardly a Thanksgiving, or Christmas meal for more than one, maybe two?
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I only ate partridge once — LONG time ago — and as far as I could tell, it was a version of gamey chicken.
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…. Or a fancy pigeon? No, that would be “squab”, right?
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I was almost ashamed to admit that I use automatic focus on my camera, but it is a good one on my Nikon and if I want a quick shot it works fine. I am not a pear fan. Here they mainly grow on a trellis for support
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At my stage of vision, if it weren’t for autofocus, I’d never get anything sharp. I didn’t know pears grew on anything but trees.
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They are still trees, but sort of flat trees that hang wide on a trellis. Perhaps it is the sort we have in Europe
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That’s really interesting. I bet it’s the way the gardeners train the trees. They certainly take up a lot less room and the chances of you getting brained by one of them fall from top branches is less. ALSO, it turned out to be really difficult to get the pears from the top of the tree. I had a friend who was a good climber. He used to go all the way up and toss the pears down to us.
Around here, the farmers keep the apple trees short by constantly pruning them. Probably for the same reason. Hard to get the apples from the top of a tall tree.
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