Fun with Fruit

By David E. Metcalf

“Mom!” my cousin Dan shouted. The car that was leaving the driveway stopped abruptly.

Dan had seen something I’d missed. I wondered what it was and, unfortunately, I soon found out.

We stood in an orchard near our family’s homestead in the hills outside Homedale. The area was covered with orchards, where my relatives, including some of my favorite cousins, lived, played, and worked. My parents and older siblings had moved down to the flat farmlands just prior to my birth. From there, I could gaze across the Snake River to the hills overlooking the valley. Just out of view was the land on which my grandparents and other family members settled and developed in the days of the Oregon Trail and the creation of the canal systems that followed, bringing water from various places to irrigate this once-barren desert. The water transformed the land into a plethora of colors, as ground crops, vineyards, and fruit trees bloomed in the spring, turned dark green in the summer, and yielded their fruits in the fall.