Plum perfect

It's summer here in the Arizona low desert. That's not unusual--it's summer here half the year. My mom, who is a transplant from a far milder climate, hates this time of year. She hates the heat, the dust, the absolute insanity of attempting to do anything when it's 115 in the shade and your skin feels like it's on fire. My dad is a native and is used to it. It helps that he grew up in the "old Arizona''--the Arizona before air-conditioning was wide-spread and when everyone farmed or ranched. (He learned to drive a cotton tractor when he was seven. Apparently kids were better drivers then, because I have raised seven-year-olds, and there is NO WAY I would let one of them near heavy operable machinery!) He is used to the heat. Guess which side I take after?



So summer for me here is sort of like the winter for people in more Northern places--they hibernate from October to May, I hibernate from May until October. Although last year it was November before we saw any relief. I've heard of people who endure long periods of deep cold looking for signs of hope: the first robin, the first crocus (Ha! none of those here!), etc. I do the same thing--sort of. I look for desert-adapted signs that somehow we will make it through all this and there will be something good waiting for us at the other end of this oven-like experience.



Here's the sign I found Saturday:

That, friends, is a tiny little plum growing on a small tree in the backyard. That single plum represents the triumph of hope over despair. The plum tree in question was a gift from my mother when we bought the house. She had fond memories of making plum jam with me in our tiny basement student apartment, and she thought a plum tree would keep the good times rolling. Slight problem: there are no other plums trees within a pollination-feasible radius of our tree, so the poor thing remained unfulfilled.

My sweet husband, reaching for the dream, bought another plum tree to pollinate the first. It looked to me like a stick stuck in the garden. Apparently our dog thought similarly, and in a fit of either pique or playfulness, she gnawed it down to the ground. Tragedy! We scolded the dog, watered the tree, fenced it off with chicken wire, and prayed for the best. It survived and started putting out shoots. We thought it had become sufficiently large to deter the dog,and eventually removed the wire, which was adding nothing to the overall appearance of the garden.

The dog was undeterable and ate the tree again. Twice.

Same shtick all over--scold, water, fence, pray. We left the fence up for two years--appearances are secondary when you have a tree-eating pooch. The poor tree was so traumatized it refused to spread out, refused to bud, to bloom, and to do the thing for which it was brought into our lives: pollinate. No plums!

We have waited four years for this one tiny miracle plum. When we harvest it I don't know if we'll allow someone to eat it, or if we'll preserve it in resin for all eternity. Maybe I'll make the smallest batch of plum jam in history and take it to my mom.

Sounds like something to look forward to.