Timing and Nature

2025-07-06

We went on a trip for seven days to LA and had a great time. I did miss work for five days, I missed a party my Dad was a part of, I missed my traditional 4th of July BBQ, and I probably missed some event in my wife’s family, they are always having events.

But one thing that I missed was harvesting about half of our apricots from our apricot tree. When I had left our tree was full of almost ripe fruit, they could be picked and eaten but they weren’t at peak ripeness yet. And then after we got back about half of the apricots were on the ground and the bugs has already gotten to them, I inspected most of them and either ants or fruit flies had started consuming the fruit.

And so I knew the remaining fruit on the tree was very ripe and needed to be harvested, so I jumped into action. I picked all of the fruit that I could easily, I called my Dad and step mom, and we made jam with the help of our oldest son and Sneha. We cut the fruit, boiled it the first time, spiced and sugared it, boiled it again, and then jarred it.

I wish I could easily post photos but I can’t, please assume that we worked hard and had a great time. Our oldest loves eating apricots and also now loves apricot jam.

But I feel the moral that I learned is you really can’t force the timing of nature. Those apricots were going to drop when they were and there was nothing I could do delay it. And I took my trip when I did so I missed peak harvesting seasoning, so I have to deal with the consequences. Perhaps I could have picked the fruit a little earlier when it wasn’t peak ripeness, or maybe I do what I did and sacrifice half of my fruit. I wasn’t going to delay my trip. And that is life, sometimes you can’t optimize for everything.

-Gary