Please forgive my little play on words, but today we really are “plum” lucky. Will you look at all that fruit?

Basket of Plums

Plums Still on the Tree

Coincidentally, today is my youngest son’s 14th birthday. The tree that produced all this goodness was a gift for his tenth birthday. This is the tree’s break-out year for fruit. We have lots of yummy apricots, too.

Freshly Harvested Apricots

Apricots on the tree

In one of life’s small ironies, the birthday boy won’t eat any of this fruit. He’s excited to grow and pick the fruit. He’s especially proud of the ample production. In a stage that I hope will one day pass, he still blames me for over-pruning and thereby killing one of the tree’s four grafts.

In the interest of harmony, we agree to change the subject.

We’re celebrating later with his favorite cake: Sans Rival. It’s a Filipino dessert cake made of layers of butter-cream, meringue and chopped cashews. Its name comes from the French phrase with the literal meaning without rival. My friend Jasmin introduced us to the cake and we’ve been fans ever since.

Happy birthday to my smart, clever, insightful, creative and handsome young man. You can’t see him, but he’s standing at the bottom of the fruit-picker.

Telescoping Fruit Picker