The Giving Tree

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is one of my favorite children's books.  It's the story of a relationship between an apple tree and a boy.  Every day a boy visits the tree and swings from its branches and eats its apples.  As the boy grows older he lies in the shade of the tree and sells the apples to make money.  The boy loves the tree and the tree accommodates his every need as the boy becomes an old man.  Eventually there is nothing left of the tree, but a stump.  The old man sits on its stump and the tree is happy.

At this point you might be asking yourself, what does that have to do with the picture of peaches I've posted?  We have a peach tree which is about 12 years old now.  The tree looked like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree when we bought it.  I was embarrassed to put it in the middle of our big backyard.  To be honest, I wasn't happy about the tree at first because I was under the impression my husband was going to come home from the nursery with a big tree.  After it sat in its container for several days my husband finally planted it in a corner of our house by our deck.  The tree flourished and after a couple of years produced delicious juicy peaches.  Some years the peaches were better than others.  A few times the leaves developed a fungus and branches broke every year from either storms or the weight of the peaches.  We built a sunroom this year next to the tree and had to cut some of it back yet the tree continues to produce fruit.  This year we had a bountiful harvest of peaches.  We have shared them with friends and neighbors and I made peach cobbler and peach crisp.

This may be the last year for the peach tree, but we have thought that several times before and it continues to give.  I hope it's happy because it has made us happy over the years.