The Fruits of My Labors - Bad Year for Fruit

Thanks to those of you concerned about my health. I appreciated the calls and texts to see how I was doing. I was in bed for 30+ hours with the migraine yesterday and was only up to take pills, throwing up and to eat and drink small amounts to take the pills. I woke up at 4 p.m. today feeling SO much better.

I have a lingering headache wondering if a storm will follow the storm that is coming and looking at the forecast, there is rain scheduled for three days so I think it was just the mother of all migraines as I have never been down like that for so long without some relief before. 

With that, here is todays post.....


I believe God gives us a bumper crop just before a famine year. This year is no exception. In the 20+ years in this home, I have never had such a horrible crop.

I believe in God, and last year, I had more fruit in one year than I have had in several years put together. I shared with Princess Five as we were drying fruit for months that I felt like perhaps God was letting us know that the next year would be a famine year.

Fast forward to this year. There was a late freeze and with that, all the blossoms died off. I got no plums on four of my five trees and only a handful on the one tree that did have a few on it. Last year, branches broke on two of my trees as they had so many plums on them. It was the first year of my life that I didn't freeze, can, dehydrate or give away all the fruit on the tree as I hate to see waste. I called several families and asked them to come pick as much as they wanted and I still had fruit drop to the ground wasted as I couldn't do more than I did.

I got about four cherries on our tree. The birds went after them before I could even find them and so Princess Five and I each got a few but that was it.



Usually, even if none of the other fruit does well, the apple trees usually have tons of fruit, this year, I got three golden delicious apples off of our two trees. I got two red apples off my "five variety" apple tree. That is less than last year as well.

The only tree that produced is my multiple variety pear tree. None of the red Asian pears survived the frost but the heartier pears on the main branches produced a large amount as in the past we have only had a handful of any type of pear so to get this larger amount was a blessing.

Two days ago, there were about 20 on the tree with one on the ground. We had wind storms for two days and as you know if you read yesterdays post, I was in bed with a migraine and when I got up today, half of the pears had been blown out of the tree due to the high winds.

I was grateful I was feeling better enough to go out and harvest the only crops I had this year. Five apples and 20 pears and some chives that were super over grown and I cut off the good parts to use in cooking and that was the extent of my crops other than some potatoes that started growing from some sprouted ones I threw in the garden area. I don't know yet if any of those are edible but didn't have time today to find out.

Truly, I am grateful for last years bumper crop as I hope to have enough to share until next year. Hopefully, the trees will produce next year as there weren't many people around that got any type of harvest that way. My neighbor that usually shares his garden produce with me is no longer able to garden so we didn't enjoy much fresh produce this year.

Here is a post from last years boom harvest. Funny, but looking for that post, I realized that the year before, I had only a handful of apples on my tree and my post is nearly the exact same as this post. Here is a link to that post as in 2014  when I had a HUGE crop. Funny how God works giving us high yields before a no yield year! Have a Blessed Day!