Fig of my Imagination

It’s fig season again! But this year, it’s a little lackluster. It’s not the birds getting to the figs. It’s not the squirrels. There are only a few figs, and the ones that have appeared seem tired. Some of them are falling to the ground before they start to ripen, others are sitting small and […]

Fig of My Imagination

It’s fig season again! This post first ran in October 2019. Now we have a squirrel who I’m competing with to get the ripe ones off our bigger tree. And our little tree? It’s still little, with about six figs and two leafy branches. Maybe I’m imagining it, but the branches seem a little stronger […]

Fig of My Imagination

When we first moved into this house, we planted a fig tree in the backyard. It looked sad and scraggly for a long time—years, in fact. I would go over to the houses of friends who had fig trees in August, and these trees would be dripping with figs. I would ask how old the […]

Guest Post: Death of a Fig Tree: My Climate Change

This winter in Baltimore we suffered. We steeled ourselves against record-breaking cold, and our heating bills were scandalous. There was so much snow that the children got tired of sledding. (It snowed on Tax Day, for Pete’s sake.) Months later, the potholes are punishing, and my fig tree is at death’s door. As far as […]