Trees, cherries and sparrows -- the saga continues

Peach branches in water
watercolour on watercolour paper with black marker
8 1/2 x 11 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(I'll try photographing this again in daylight.
My kitchen gives the white paper a yellow tone.)

Trees
I spent a good part of the day today dealing with
trees. The cherry tree just will not give up and we
have had pie twice! This is not good. So Steven
put the tall ladder up the center of the tree about
a week ago and today he worked at the top, while I picked
away lower down. The fruit is so ripe now that my hands
and arms were covered in juice, but it was a great
feeling. We tried to get every cherry off that tree,
but of course, that's a completely impossible task, and
I felt like I was in the middle of a life lesson from the
universe. Every time I decided I'd picked this section
of the tree, I'd turn an inch or so in a different direction
and see 100 more.

After that we climbed on the garage roof and picked another
pie's worth. Our running joke is "well that's it, there are
no more cherries," meanwhile the tree is still bright red
against the green leaves. Fruit, fruit, fruit. Then we
carefully trimmed all the branches from our own and
neighbours' trees lying on our garage roof. The picture
tonight is a watercolour of some branches (complete with
tiny peaches) trimmed from my next door neighbour's tree.


Birds
Remember the sparrow story? Today I was drinking my
coffee and reading my novel when Steven opened the
kitchen door, and told me to"get downstairs right away!"
I ran down wondering what could be worth interrupting
my Sunday morning ritual, and Steven was sitting
on the back porch holding a baby sparrow which seemed
to have one lame leg, in his hands.
I persuaded him to put it on the grass in the yard, and
he spent a few tense hours watching it, putting birdseed
out, watching the parents feed it. He talked about
building it a shelter, bringing it in -- right -- to our two
waiting cats who would succeed in eating it for sure.
I could not watch him, having suffered this same
desperate sadness (no doubt with the same bird) just
a little while ago. How does the story end? Steven went
inside for one minute and the bird disappeared. We
couldn't find it anywhere. So we've decided it flew away.
It was almost ready. Let's hold that thought.

Mmmmm. I smell cherry pie. It's hard to stay anything
resembling fit in this house, but what a treat!

Have an amused-by-small-events day.

Footnote: That sour cherry pie is the most
delicious thing I have every tasted -- sooo
incredibly good.