The Tangerine Tree

The crows came when the tangerine tree was full. Swooping down from the sky, cries of “caw! caw!” alerted us to the attack. Faster than we could run, the crow was back up in the air, orange sphere in its beak, a ridiculous Halloween sight reminiscent of pumpkins and black cats.  This was always followed by the inevitable shudder from my father as another prize was lost to nature.

No other tree was like it in our yard, which was full of orange, lemon, fig, plum, apple, and other varieties of fruit that sustained us for decades. The yard was modest, not a farm but a ¾ acre property where the scale balanced more to garden and less to house. We all had our favorites but mine was the tangerine tree.

Full of fruit when citrus season occurred, it was impossible to imagine a shortage of food. The tree produced hundreds of the sweetest, juiciest tangerines I have ever eaten. My mother’s kitchen was filled with rows of citrus, Easter baskets doubled as fruit baskets. In this day of food shortage in so many places, we had a wealth to share. Indeed, no one came to visit who didn’t leave with a bag of garden delights.

War with the crows didn’t start right away. At first I don’t think my father believed that rows were much of a threat. We lived in a world where gophers, squirrels and rabbits were treated as enemies of state. I think it became personal the way these things go between gardener and animal kingdom. So up went the netting, with my brothers and father on ladders, encircling the tree to protect the fruit from attack. For close to 40 years that tree was the star of the yard.

Life changed as it always does and the time came to sell the house. I had no regrets or sense of childhood loss except for that tree. I don’t remember when it was planted and it’s hard to remember a time when it wasn’t there.  Every tangerine I’ve eaten since has always been measured against what we had at home.

This year’s blog action day is about food. Food is many things – scarce for so many people in the world who live on small amounts of rice and water. Food is abundance - taken for granted and wasted in other parts of the world. Food nourishes us physically, emotionally, and connects us over meals and family gatherings.

Food can bring us back to a time and place.

I miss the tangerine tree.  I like to think that the children living there today still chase after the crows and enjoy fresh fruit from my father’s garden.

To read more about #FOOD and #BAD11 Blog Action Day 2011 check twitter with the hash tag or go to: http://blogactionday.org/act/