The past few weeks have been very busy for me and Pim with all the doctor’s visits required of her 7th month of carrying, updating public records, acquiring necessary documents and filing her immigrant visa application that we never had much time to visit the farm except to make short stops to check the work done. With a baby coming along I miss the times when I spent most of my free time making the rounds at the farm and sometimes, when I’m feeling more adventurous, even going out far into the open grassland and woodlands beyond our fence; not even deterred by the sun’s heat or occasional rains.
Yesterday gave me free time so Val, my farm overseer, and I walked to check the partially shaded trees we’ve planted the past years along the shallow creek that borders the farm. We don’t usually collect fruits during the first quarter of the year because most trees we observe are not in fruit this season. It slipped my mind though that one particular cauliflorous and water-loving tree displays its magenta to deep-purple berries from January to March. And so there they were, ready for the picking! We have about a dozen of this wild trees scattered along the same natural waterway.
Val helped himself in sampling this season’s harvest; the shiny berries are sweet but they leave a little astringency on the tongue; truly a forest fruit! (289)
