I looked out the window a few days ago, and realized the change in the color of the apricots. They aren’t quite ripe yet, but it won’t be long. There are a few early adopters of the delicious orange glow, and although still on the sour side, they don’t taste half bad. The earwigs have also discovered this fact.
In the skins of the most precocious of the “cots”, earwigs have started burrowing. I’m sure they’ve been waiting with anticipation similar to mine. They must feel they have just as much right to the fruit that neither of us had any part in creating. But, it still “bugs” me that they would be sinking divots into the specimens that I have my heart set on. Why can’t they be satisfied with those that the wind has brought to the ground?
In a week or so, it won’t matter. There will be too many for even the earwigs to destroy. Last year there may have been a total of 50 apricots on the entire tree. This year the field is ripe, all ready to harvest. The tree is loaded.