Promises

The Melbas are fattening up. All the rain we had in May and June helped to give these early apples a great head start. Now it's hot and humid, perhaps they won't get too big, but they're bound to be sweet.

Melba apples are among my favourites - they are soft and luscious, and how blessed am I to have a tree full of them this year, right in my yard.

I couldn't resist taking this photo - it says all kinds of things about the coming bounty of fall to which we can look forward.

Everywhere there seems to be excess - lots of apples, lots of hay, lots of canola in the nearby fields that my farmer friends are growing this year. When I hear of drought and famine in other parts of the world, it makes me feel even more fortunate.

In Ontario we grow the bulk of the apples that Canada produces. This country is one of the major apple producers world-wide. Though we face serious competition from China because their labour and chemical costs are so low, we have invented or rather hybridized a new apple that grows on vines like grapes - called Red Prince - many thousands of acres are under cultivation and now producing well. They can be picked by machine and require less manpower to maintain apparently.

Canada is full of inventors and creative thinkers - I'm so proud of this and the ability we have to take an idea and nurture it into fruition... ooops - a pun. Well, we need a chuckle to start the day don't we?

Hope you have many chuckles and even better some inspired ideas today? Are you the next inventor in your "neck of the woods?"