and a partridge in a pear tree

 hello world, again! i know it's funny that i've just had a kid and i'm leading with a post about pears, but whatever works to start me up again, let's do it. so:

this pear tree was planted by the old owner of the house - an old lady who sold to the couple we bought from. i think she started it right before she sold the house, and then for the next few years the pear did...nothing. the previous owners said they had 4 pears (= pieces of fruit) the year before we bought. and last year we returned from holidays around this time, end of august, to not more than 10-15 pears on the tree, but much smaller and less ripe than what you see in the picture. i only got to eat one or two, because the squirrels got to the ones on the upper branches, and they were not ripe, so they had that weird abrasive saliva-inducing texture. long story short, i did not have huge expectations for this year. i only realized what was happening when one of the branches bent to the ground under the weight of the pears. and they keep growing and turning red as they ripen. 

ok, so we started gathering them maybe about 2 weeks ago. the first ones we took were medium size, from what my previous experience with pears tells me, and still a bit tough/underripe, but they could actually be eaten. since then, every day it's been more and more, well...overwhelming. so the whole of last week our house became a how-to-get-rid-of-pears workshop. clearly eating them would not be enough (b. only eats them peeled and quartered, rada won't eat them unless she's walking outdoors and i pack slices in her snack box...so, not much help from them really). also in the meantime a lot of them are prey to squirrels, birds and wasps, and/or fall down and rot. b. gathered some in the compost bin, but it's a daily task. 
i'm shy of giving things to people, because standards, but so far i have successfully pressed some bags of pears onto two neighbours: the old couple who live on the parallel block (east-side from our backyard) and the young couple across the street (front side) who had gifted me with a pack of newborn clothes (their younger daughter is about 4 months old, i think). 

luckily baking is easy, and the recipe i found for pear cake/bread is excellent. (2 secrets: 1. leave the pears to macerate in sugar, and 2. nutmeg!). so far i've made 3 installments last week, and i think i'm going to stop because i still refuse to freeze baked goods, and there's a limit to fridge space and to how fast we can eat. lol i might start giving cakes to neighbours, but i feel that's very...'50s. although some of our current neighbours were here in the 50s, doing fine.

i am so proud of myself for making this jam! no pectin, no nothing, just pears, lemon juice and sugar! cooks in less than half an hour, after resting for 24h in the fridge. i am too much of a novice to attempt canning (and anyway, i only made about 1 1/2 jars every time, because i don't have bigger pots in the house) so it will have to be stored in the back of the fridge. one thing is clear: no more buying jams this fall. wait, maybe i should start giving jams to neighbours! but that would mean buying mason jars etc.

so this happened! i caramelized a batch of jam. there might have been lots of factors involved, but mainly, the pears weren't behaving as i expected (not enough juice?) so i just left them on the stove for about an hour, hoping they would change their mind. amazingly, the end result is edible, even good if you like that thing (texture is very jelly-like) but i think i could have used sticks instead of pears and the taste would still be the same (caramelized sugar).

finally, a round-up: this is not everything that the pear tree brought us, but it's everything we had in the house at the time: the daily pear haul, latest batch of cake and two different types of jam:). it feel very productive, very unexpected, and like an adventure in our small suburban life. we also got home grown tomatoes from one neighbour, in exchange. i'm curious how much longer we can milk this one ...tree, and what people with multiple fruit trees actually do with their lives at harvest time. 

and here's the little partridge