Everyday miracles

I live in a district where coffee trees grow. And today they all started flowering. The heavy rain last week helped to synchronise their schedules (or something) and all the local trees burst into flower this morning. From a distance it looked as though a dusting of huge snowflakes had settled all over the paddocks.

The flowers are like 5-pointed white stars, clustered together in clumps along each branch. And they have the most amazing scent, something akin to that of a citrus tree blossom: warm, sweet, swoon-inducing.

The trees flower for only one or two days per year. By some quirky miracle, millions of bees appear out of nowhere, buzz around the flowers (pollinating the trees and ensuring the growth of next season’s coffee), and then disappear again. I don’t know where they come from or how they knew to get here today; apparently they have some sort of message service. But we’re very grateful, little bees. Good job.

And I’m also sending thanks to Kent at Dock of the Bay for his post about fig trees. I thought of it today as I was mowing a property down the road. They have a huge fig tree which I usually don’t notice. But today I looked at it properly, and paced out the diameter: about 53 metres. Which is seriously big. Which presumably also means it’s seriously old. Imagine what it might've seen during its lifetime...

I’m guessing it hasn't seen this before, though: up the hill from the fig tree, in the middle of the lawn, lying there seemingly at rest and happily oblivious to the world: a lone pineapple.