The New Old Apple Tree

This is Fruitycake.

Before we get to today’s new old apple tree and its hornet residents, I have one important Fruitycake request: please make today the day you join us on Patreon. This is only the limited version of the blog here.

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Now, about this tree. Because apparently I am not the only one around here who appreciates dessert.

This is Fruitycake. There is a new old apple tree here at the rustico. I bet you didn’t know there was such a thing! But there is, and it has only recently been discovered by me, Explorer Fruitycake. I would like to point out that Girl Person has walked past this tree approximately nine million times and did not make this discovery, so clearly we know who should be in charge of important investigations around here.

When we first got here years ago, we saw the apple tree. It was only old then. It was struggling, drying out and looking like it had already lived most of its story. There was one apple on it. Just one. Naturally, I assumed this meant apple pie was imminent. Girl Person explained that one apple does not make an apple pie. I explained that this sounded like a lack of imagination.

A few days later, the apple fell to the ground. There went my pie.

After that, the tree seemed to fade a little more every season. Branches dried up, pieces broke away and eventually we stopped looking for apples because we had decided we knew what was happening. The tree was old. It wasn’t producing anything anymore. No apples. No pie. Certainly no pizza, although I continued checking because I believe strongly in miracles.

Except we were looking at the tree completely wrong. This week, we really looked at it again, and there was life everywhere. European hornets had discovered it.

Apparently, while we were busy walking past this old tree and thinking its useful years were behind it, an entire hornet civilization had opened for business. They crawl around the trunk, disappear into openings, fly away and return like they have appointments. Girl Person started taking pictures and videos, Boy Person started watching them too, and naturally I supervised because this entire operation is taking place on property under my management.

Then we started learning about our new neighbors. European hornets like sweet things such as ripe fruit, nectar and tree sap. So basically, they moved into an apple tree because they appreciate dessert. Finally, neighbors with whom I have something in common.

But they don’t live on sweets alone. The workers hunt insects and bring that protein back to feed their larvae. The adults go out, find the groceries and bring dinner home to the children. Even better, the larvae can make scraping noises when they want to be fed. Apparently, if you’re a baby hornet, you can sit in your little room making noises until somebody brings you dinner. I have been attempting to establish this exact arrangement with Girl Person for five years, yet somehow when I do it, it’s called begging.

Hornets also chew old wood fibers and turn them into the paper-like material used to build their nests. Think about this. They found their own house, obtain their own groceries and manufacture their own building materials. There are projects around this rustico that have been waiting for Boy Person for years, and I’m beginning to wonder whether we should hire hornets.

Payment can be made in apples. They are not getting my pizza. But the more we watched them, the more we realized this wasn’t really a story about hornets at all. Because this tree is old. Really old.

It doesn’t look the way it once did. It can’t do everything it once did. It doesn’t produce apples like it used to, and if we judged its worth only by the thing it did when it was younger, we could easily decide that it doesn’t have much purpose anymore.

We would be completely wrong.

Its age is actually part of what made its new purpose possible. The hollow places, weathered wood and openings that came with all those years created a home for something else. What we saw as deterioration, another creature saw as shelter. What we saw as an old tree that couldn’t produce anymore, nature saw as something still incredibly useful.

I think people need to hear that too.

We live in a world that talks an awful lot about staying young. Looking young. Acting young. Keeping up. Producing more. Doing more. And sometimes people begin to believe that when they can’t do what they did at 30 or 40 or 50, they somehow have less to offer.

Maybe you can’t work as many hours anymore. Maybe you don’t move as quickly. Maybe your family doesn’t need you in exactly the same way. Maybe you’ve retired from the job that once defined your days. Maybe you look in the mirror and see some weathered places that weren’t there before. Maybe the things you thought were your purpose simply aren’t your purpose anymore. That doesn’t mean you don’t have one. Maybe purpose changes.

The old apple tree doesn’t have to prove its worth by producing another apple. It already spent years doing that. Now it provides shelter. It supports life. It gives insects a place to build and feed and raise another generation. It gives Girl Person something fascinating to photograph. It gives us something to learn about. And apparently it has given me an entire blog, which is impressive productivity for a tree we thought wasn’t doing anything.

And I think the same can be true for people. Maybe there comes a time when your purpose isn’t about producing as much as possible. Maybe it’s what you know. Maybe it’s the story you can tell someone younger. Maybe it’s being the person who listens because you’ve lived long enough to understand that sometimes listening is more valuable than fixing. Maybe it’s encouraging someone who is just beginning something you’ve already been through. Maybe it’s caring for an animal. Maybe it’s making somebody laugh. Maybe it’s simply being the familiar person someone is relieved to see.

You don’t stop mattering because your role changes.

And I think that applies to all kinds of changes, not only getting older. We have been thinking about purpose ourselves lately. 2 Traveling Dogs doesn’t look exactly the way it did when we started. Our lives don’t look the same. The way we help animals continues to change.

We spend so much time wishing we could get back to an earlier version of ourselves that sometimes we don’t notice the value of the person we’ve become.

An old apple tree taught us that this week.

And naturally, a dog discovered it.

October 1 | I Will Notice What Is Beginning, Not Only What Is Ending

TODAY’S AFFIRMATION

I will notice what is beginning, not only what is ending. A changing season can carry both goodbye and invitation. Today I will look for one new thing quietly making its way toward me.

That is what we’re going to try to do as October begins, and I hope you will do it with us. Instead of only noticing what we can’t do anymore, maybe we can notice what we can do now that we couldn’t have done before. We know more. We’ve experienced more. We’ve survived more. We’ve met people and animals who changed us. We’ve made mistakes and learned things we couldn’t possibly have understood without living through them.

Those aren’t broken branches. Those are years.

Tomorrow morning, I will walk past our new old apple tree again. There probably won’t be an apple waiting for me. There will be old bark, hollow places, broken branches and an entire hornet civilization operating what appears to be a combination daycare, construction company, grocery delivery service and all-you-can-eat insect restaurant.

And for the first time, I won’t look at that tree and think about what it can’t do anymore.

I’ll look at everything it is doing now.

Maybe tomorrow you can do that for yourself too. Don’t measure today’s you entirely against the person you were ten or twenty or forty years ago. That person had a purpose. So does this one.

Sometimes the purpose simply changes.

And if you’re lucky, maybe one day you’ll become like our new old apple tree: a little weathered, full of stories, unexpectedly useful and still capable of surprising everyone who bothered to look closely.

Although if this tree ever produces another apple, I would like everyone to remember the official distribution agreement.

I get the apple. Girl Person makes the pie. We order pizza while we’re waiting for it to bake. Because getting older may change your purpose, but it should never change your priorities.

Fruitycake

Before we go, fall weather is settling in here at the rustico, and we are trying to get ready for the colder, wetter days ahead while keeping groceries, fuel and everyday necessities covered. Support is extremely low right now, so if you have been thinking about helping us, today would mean so much.

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TODAY ONLY: We have held over Fruitycake’s October Affirmation Workbook for ONE FINAL DAY. If you missed it yesterday, this is your last chance. At the end of TODAY, it is gone. There will not be another extension. Get yours before the day ends: www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/7A5N42ZZVZWWE

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Thank you for keeping us going.