peach pit

The hazy days of summer non-vacation continue. We still don’t have a firm date as to when our apartment will be habitable again, although management issued a rough timetable that has our floor potentially moving back in early next week.

This weekend I was helping do yardwork. There’s a big peach tree in the back yard, and its branches are so laden with peaches that a couple of them snapped. So we had cleanup work to do. We salvaged what we could and chucked the remainder of the peaches (bashed, rotting, partially eaten) into the compost heap.

There’s a big squash-like plant growing out of the compost heap. No one knows what it is. Mom and Dad often throw seeds into the compost bin, so it’s not unusual to get volunteer plants. We’ll just have to wait until it starts bearing fruit.

Yesterday, Jasper came over to help Dad with more yardwork. This is a semi-frequent thing and I don’t entirely get it. When Jasper was a tenant, my parents offered him lower rent in exchange for doing yardwork and other chores; that part makes sense. But he moved out a few years ago and he’s now finishing up his undergrad downstate. So why’s he coming back to do yardwork? It feels like a weird quasi-familial thing—Mom and Dad were kind of like parents-away-from-home to him, and that relationship continues even while he’s out of town. But it also comes with perks. They took him on the New York trip.