Trust me-this will all make sense later, sort of.

It most likely is never good when any two-part  relationship starts off with one part being sliced up and then eaten by the other. But I thought this pineapple and me had a good shot at reaching an agreement:  sure the body would be diced up into squares, eaten and in this way lost but then a new life would begin once it’s pineapple top was planted in my backyard.  Right about here is when I learned a lot about pineapples.

Everyone knows a pineapple is lumpy, jagged maybe even prickly on its outside but inside it is through and though yellow. The minute I even thought about cutting this pineapples’ head off I could just feel the resentment building; the pineapple’s firm resolve to remain hesitant about this whole chopping up arrangement filled the air. Pitiful.  It was with absolute horror that I skinned this fruit nearly alive. Oh it fought back alright, sliding back and forth on my cutting board, squashing juice through my fingers and in every respect being quite disagreeable throughout the whole process. But eventually after slicing off side after side and finishing this ghastly deed only the yellow fruit flesh of the pineapple remained .

Skinning a Pineapple.

The eating of this pineapple I don’t remember because gas ripened fruit of any kind has this type of legacy.  I’m just saying the sooner those gas ripened cardboard tasting tomatoes are eaten and forgotten the better. And let’s not leave out those miraculous bananas that turn from green to rotten without ever passing ripe. I still can’t figure that out. Maybe ripe happens in milliseconds when it comes to bananas but enough about those other yellow fruits, we’re talkin’ pineapples here. Still I should add this: if anyone can figure out how to ship unripened fruit around the world but have it taste freshly wonderful when it is bought and eaten I will ask Romney and Newt to give you all of their money, tax deferred of course.

The thing about pineapples is that I live outside of the sub tropical zone and they don’t, not without work that is. Yeah here in Gainesville Florida it is possible to wrestle your pineapple down on the cutting board,  cut your pineapple’s head off, eat it and then plant the cut off green topper in good soil, water it lightly once a week and watch it grow. The pineapple plant is a beautiful plant actually, spreading long  green finger shaped  tubes out from its center in a circular fashion.

Worth carrying in and out.

Eventually, and there in lies the rub, the plant will send up an interesting flower of sorts and then bingo, it grows a pineapple you can eat! I’ve actually grown some the size super-store Sams sells but mostly they have been the size of what we would call a small pineapple.

See??? Really yellow is really ripe on the plant.

And the taste of an actually ripe pineapple is beyond what you are trying to imagine now. You may not have known all this but I know of several other creatures that do.

First off the rub part: pineapples are persnickety in that they take two years to grow and fruit- this is a lot of plant watching time. But like I say the eating makes it all worth while, that is if you get to eat the fruit. See the trouble is this “good eating” is not a secret. Here’s a list of just a few others who might like to help you eat your pineapple.

1) Squirrels

2) Possums

3)ants

4)some snakes

5) birds love to peck them

6)other rodents of any type dressed in disguise (see I told you that header picture would make sense)

7) Neighbors

8) your children

9) any relatives that know about them, and

10) more squirrels.

So it’s easy to see you can’t just shoot everyone and everything that might be helping you watch your pineapples grow for two years. Some people put up mesh cages around their pineapples to keep critters out of them but have you ever watched The Great Escape? The word about tunnels didn’t take long to get around the animal kingdom either. Case in point the biggest pineapple I ever grew had just turned golden brown and yellow (not like any you’ve seen in stores) as I ventured out one morning to pick it. Those claws marks dug deep into the far side of the pineapple, the side out of view from my house, really threw me for a loop that day. I’m not a murderer at heart , except for that one moment, well okay, those feeling may have lasted longer.

We are charged with safe guarding our animal kingdom and letting our fellow mankind live. Never have these two responsibilities been more challenged than they are by the mutilation or death of a pineapple you’ve grown for two years. Those cute little squirrels I watch eat my bird seed quickly look more like  potential pelts upon any wall or trash can if a pineapple death is involved.  Wild life loses its mystic qualities and earns some pesky mongrel dog adjectives. And as for people when it comes to stolen pineapples it goes like this: that inept, useless boondoggle of a fence America wasted it’s time building across the Texan desert is looking more and more like a good idea.

In short I guess the unexpected death of the pineapple I’d made my agreement with was  somehow good for me. Maybe it toughened me up inside, maybe I’ll enjoy the fruits of my labor agreements more now when they do work out. This is all fine, but don’t  try to tell my stomach this, that won’t work.  My last pineapple fiasco hasn’t helped much either. After one and half years, after making it through a record low temperature last winter, my biggest pineapple bit the dust during our only hard freeze this year. Meanwhile I’m busy watching my other seven pineapples grow but I don’t like the look some of our squirrels have been giving me lately…

Franque

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