I returned to the giving tree tonight and couldn't help but think that's what this old kieffer pear tree was feeling.
Last year, I picked more 400 pounds of fruit from its tireless, heavy limbs and still didn't get it all.
This year, with the help of four volunteers and one four-legged mascot dubbed Peary, we picked the tree pretty clean, save for the upper branches.
Its limbs were scaled, batted at and scoured wherever our ladders would allow us to go.
What we got was about 150 pounds. But with a cool, wet spring putting bees off their pollinating duties, which the clearly kicked butt at last year, and a drought-stricken July, this was all the giving tree had in it this year.
Still, it's 150 more pounds of fruit than had we not had the opportunity to enjoy its bounty at all.
The fruit is destined for the kitchen of the culinary high skills major students from the Niagara Catholic District School Board, who will jar them for Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold.
The next harvest happens Saturday on Scott Street in St. Catharines. If you can make it, drop me a line at eatingniagara@gmail.com.
