This year and next

I picked my second batch of grapefruit yesterday. There is a story in how and why I've gone from all but ignoring this - and only this - citrus tree to planning to harvest every bit of fruit from this bumper crop. There is still grapefruit on the tree, so those musings may show up when I harvest the next batch. I will even include pictures of my fruit picker that puzzled so many of you on the phone. But that story is not why I'm writing today.


While I was working, I had one of those moments where I suddenly understood a bit about life, the universe and everything. Or, on a MUCH smaller scale, where one small piece of my world settled itself into a spot that created a much more pleasant patter in my head.

If you look closely at this picture, you can see white blooms in the foreground with grapefruit nestled in the background. This grapefruit is not yet ripe. The fruit closes the connection to the stem very slowly, but waiting until the fruit pops off easily means that it will be sweeter and juicier than any other time. There are dozens of grapefruit still on the tree that could be usable, but they aren't really ready. The blooms are starting this process for next year, though, without waiting for this year's fruit to be done. The tree is obviously capable of handling both this year's fruit and next at the same time, as long as my harvesting doesn't damage the blooms. Although I had never noticed this before, and none of our other citrus are behaving this way, a quick search of the Internet indicates that this behavior is not unusual.

In my own analogy driven brain, this visual settled me right back into place. I started this season planning to perform just like my grapefruit tree - to work through completion of prior commitments and move forward with new plans at the same time. Typically, having several things going at once is the way that I work best. As the weeks have progressed, and the new interim role that I have taken at work has absorbed more of my energy, I have been losing track of next year's blooms. There are times, unfortunately, when this is also typical. I realized that I had lost track of my intentions and was reminded by a tree.

So, with a refreshed perspective and a house that smells like grapefruit, I'm re-minding myself. I'm about one third of the way through meeting the commitments that were only ideas last year. My tree's grapefruit crop is probably half harvested. This year has been a bumper crop for both the tree and me. But there are already so many blooms in place for next year's crop. They hold the promise of a green and growing year.