All Because Of A Horse

What an uninteresting question I thought at first, but then, when my thinker started thinking, I realized that my favorite fruits all have a story or trigger memories.

It seems everything in my life has somehow meaning (Wowzer, how did that happen?) Or perhaps I am getting older and I give everything more importance?

My favorite fruits are pears because I stole them frequently when I was a child. Perhaps stealing is the wrong word. If you don’t cut the branches of your pear tree and they hang over the fence, eye high for a child to pick, it’s more of a trap. It felt like a deathtrap to me because the pear tree was guarded by a horse – the meanest horse you have ever seen, I might add. It was a stallion. He was tall, we called him “Der Graue/The Gray” and our relationship had been doomed right from the start. I had tried to ride him once and when I tried to climb on his back, he turned around and bit me, right in my armpit. It hurt for weeks. To this day, I am certain that the horse showed me his teeth every time he saw me because he was still laughing.

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Pear trees are important in Austria in the area where I am from. A special kind of pear grows into glass bottles which farmers attach to the branches in spring right after the bloom turns into a small fruit. It’s quite a job to do that, and keeping the bottles safe all summer long – after a storm or strong winds – is not as easy as it might seem.

In the fall, a well-known Schnapps* is made out of it, and people near and far pay good money to get some of the famous Williams Christ Pear Schnapps directly from a local farmer and not from a factory that makes alcoholic beverages. The pear stays in the bottle, until the last drop is consumed, giving the Schnapps a wonderful flavor.

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The rest of the pears on the tree grow as nature intended.

Every time I left our farm to go to our mountain fields, or to play with neighbor kids during my summer vacation, I had to pass by the neighbor’s pear tree and his horse.

It was a kind of race. Who would make it first to the fence line, the horse or would I be faster and snatch a pear like a medal in the end? I have to admit I won quite often and one afternoon, when I enjoyed the juicy fruit and the liquid was running down my chin, I walked right into our neighbor -still holding the rest of the evidence in my hand.

“So you took another pear,” Mr. Jaeger said and it was not a question, more of a statement. We didn’t have any pear trees on our farm, so denying it was not an option. I knew how this would end. He would tell my grandma, who then would order me to “Leave that darn tree alone, we have enough fruit trees right here.” I had heard it a thousand times so it seemed.

But this time our neighbor did not just let me pass, he looked at me for a long time, like he was debating the kind of punishment that would be appropriate for a little thief like me.

“You know, you don’t have to take the pears, I give you half of the tree and you and your grandmother can have half of the pears, but it has to be a trade.” I suppose that was one of the first times when it started to sink in that everything in life comes with a price, but I was curious.

“What kind of trade?” I wanted to know and cleaned my chin with the back of my hand -tomboy style.

“You could scrub and brush “The Gray” and clean his stall,” I heard him say.

What kind of trade was that? Half of the tree and I had to take care of the whole horse? This horse was a child-eating killer, a biter, a monster, no way would I go near him but to my surprise, I heard myself say that I would talk it over with my grandma. Had I lost my mind? No halfway intelligent girl my age would risk her life for some pears?

When I told my grandma about the trade she snickered a bit. “Are you up for it?” she asked and then continued that it would be nice to have a few crates full of pears by the end of summer. Pear cake, pear butter, pear jam, and of course pear liquor -without a pear in the bottle. She already made plans and didn’t seem very worried about my health. Adults!

And so I accepted the deal, and the first time I got close to “The Gray” would today go viral in no time if someone had filmed it, thankfully back then we didn’t have cell phones, so it was just me and the horse and a lot of time to chase each other. Some days I was faster, and some days “The Gray” won but he didn’t bite me anymore, instead he now pushed me with his head. I spent a good amount of time on my buttock, and as a revenge, I sprayed him with water a bit longer than I needed to. Looking back I think he actually might have enjoyed that, after all, it was summer.

I did everything as told. I cleaned his stinking stall, washed and brushed the beast for about two months, and ate a pear every day, which tasted as good as the stolen ones did before, and by the end of summer, Mr. Jaeger did right by me.

We helped pick his fruit trees and in the evening he came down the driveway to our farm on this tractor. A nice amount of crates full of ripe pears were transported into our cold cellar and my grandmother thanked me for my hard work. Mr. Jaeger did too.

To this day I love pears the most, and now I have wasted so much time – and words – that there are none left to tell you the fig story, or write about the strawberry disaster, or the tale about the wild blackberries that made me howl in pain that night and last but not least, I cannot share the story about my second favorite fruit, the wonderful currant.

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I suppose this is how blogging works. First, you wonder about a question, then you remember a story and you start writing, still wondering if anybody might actually read it and then you get carried away and you get lost within your own memories, and at the end, you have to wrap it up too quickly.

Perhaps the same thing happens to authors and screenwriters and that’s why so many endings simply suck? (So does mine now.)

I have enjoyed writing this and it will have me smiling for the rest of the day. Back to work, woman!

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Daily writing prompt

List your top 5 favorite fruits.

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*Schnapps or schnaps is a type of alcoholic beverage that may take several forms, including distilled fruit brandies, herbal liqueurs, infusions, and “flavored liqueurs” made by adding fruit syrups, spices, or artificial flavorings to neutral grain spirits. Wikipedia