Yvon!

Yvon is our avocado tree. This is the third time that she will bear fruits. Last year we missed her perfect fruits. Some say it was because Yvon did not like her stylist or the way he trimmed her branches. Trees can get angry and bear grudges instead. But after a sabbatical ;-) and a few months back in February I saw this:

Oh, those small buds suddenly appearing all over Yvon!

This is the start of Yvon's flowering. In a few weeks, these buds will look like golden bouquets!

Clusters of small pretty yellow flowers would fill every nook and cranny of Yvon.

I guess the grudge and bad episode with her stylist was forgotten because these flowers can only mean that in a few weeks they will be replaced by these:

Little baby avocados that will soon fill every nook and cranny of Yvon like a bunch of grapes tempting the birds, heavily weighing down Yvon's elegant arms and soon, some will fall like rocks hurtling down the roof and possibly hitting the dogs and people!

Every week a dozen or more of these avocados barely made it to harvest. In large hectares of land where some of these trees thrive, their immature fruits drop down on fertile lands and possibly implant themselves to grow into another elegant tree. Some, like ours, end up filling the trash sack along with dry leaves. In the beginning I used to cry buckets when I witnessed Yvon's fruits falling down in waste until somebody told me that it is normal. The fruits that survive until harvest time are the ones that are best.

When my dog Bogart was still alive, he loved playing around Yvon and Chicky the chico tree beside it and enjoyed running off with one of the fallen fruits. And I would scream in fright because avocados are bad for dogs especially the pit inside.

Nowadays, Yvon hums her lullaby while fanning the death bed of Bogart who was buried beneath her. On some days, Yvon dances wildly with her growing fruits mingling with Chicky who is also filled with her own chico fruits.

Them trees love the wild, the wind, the heat, the drizzle, the familiar activities below them, and that crazy woman who cleans and waters her limbs as she sings lovingly in prayer to the trees and the sky above.

For all tree lovers
and lovers of avocados
most especially to Lisa
at the: