Apples and Trees

My husband is a difficult man for whom to buy gifts. If he wants something, he just gets it. It's tough.

One year I did manage to figure the perfect present for Christmas. A desk chair. The one he'd been using was worn out, duct taped and just nasty. And Tom had been complaining that his back was hurting.

So yay for me.

But I haven't figured out anything quite as good the past few times I've needed to get him a gift to show how much he means to us.

A few weeks ago, Tom happened to be at my mom's house when one of my uncles was there with tiny twigs that past for apple trees. We were given two of these twigs with the promise that if we put them in the ground, they would absolutely, positively become Granny Smith apple trees.

They're in the ground, hopefully growing.

We did some research and found that if we want decent apples in the years to come, we needed to plant another tree, one that should bear a different kind of apple.

So we hemmed and hawed and looked and waited.

And then...last weekend I declared to the girls that for Father's Day we were going to get him an apple tree. And actual tree this time, one that will help the others grows and give us wonderful, wonderful apples.

They thought this was a great idea.

About a half hour later, Tom called me and said he'd decided what he wanted for Father's Day.

See, we often give each other 'hints' as to what we think would be a nice gift. Okay, so hint isn't actually what we do. I pull up a link on ebay to the very thing I want and leave it there on the computer screen to slap him in the face the next time he sits down to work.

He calls me and tells me what he wants.

And he'd decided that an apple tree would be a most excellent gift.

I love it when we think alike.

And there it stands in our yard, planted firmly in the ground, our new Fuji apple tree.

Of course, it doesn't seem quite fair that the gift we gave him made work for Tom while the gift they gave me (the Star Trek Alternate Realities Fan Collective) lets me sit on the couch eating peppermint patties.

But all's fair in Mother's/Father's Day presents. And those few minutes of digging will give us years of delicious apples to sit on the deck and enjoy.