We had a bumper crop of figs in the backyard orchard this summer, the first in three or four years.  
Last year in the drought there were a lot on the trees, but just as they began turning brown, they all fell off, like, overnight. I disremember what happened to them the year before, but this hot dry summer Betsy made sure that I let the hose run on trickle overnight at the base of the fig trees every week.

We’ve always had fig trees, and there ain’t nothin’ better than hot homemade whole wheat bread with butter and fig preserves, like Betsy makes. I prefer plain fig preserves, whereas she likes to gussy them up with strawberry Jello so that they taste like strawberry preserves.

Once we got a big citrus basket for Christmas with those huge thick-rinded naval oranges, and she saved the rinds, ran them through a dehydrator, then chittled them up so she could add them to fig preserves along with orange Jello. You couldn’t tell them from orange marmalade, I promise!

Those two fig trees were huge before the Great 1994 Ice Storm, but when that hit, they were decimated; not a limb left knee high. But when we finished chainsawing all the bigger trees that were down in the yard, the downed fig branches had all begun to take root and greened up, so I left them alone. Now we have a fig thicket that covers a quarter of an acre.

Enough for us and all the wildlife, matter of fact. There’s an annual coon family – momma and two kits – who make a yearly habit of coming off the Mammy Grudge ditchbank without ever touching the ground.  

They come from the big cottonwood across a hackberry and a pignut into the weeping willow that has limbs leaning down into the top of the fig thicket. Possums meander across the ground to get figs, as do skunks, minks, and we even had a Labrador that enjoyed figs one year. Armadillos burrow under the fig roots to be close to the food source and we war with each other once the fruit is gone and they start digging yard holes.

Betsy picked into a wasp nest on the bottomside of a fig leaf last year, and got stung pretty good, although she isn’t allergic. However, she put me in charge of fig plucking thereafter, which is okay with me. I plan my mowing pattern to swing by for fig plucking on each round, eating them right off the tree.
I experienced a different fig plucking denizen this summer, though. We make a treaty with the birds that we leave the top figs for them, if they leave the ones from about eight feet down for us, and that works pretty well.  

But I was plucking figs off the east side one morning and noticed a higher branch just loaded down with ripe figs that was usually too high for me, but the weight of the fruit had drooped it down to where I could reach up, grab the end of the branch, then pull it down to where I could pluck the figs by handfuls.  

I reached as high as I could, got a good hold on the end of a branch, and slowly eased it down to where I could pluck the figs, careful not to break the branch. I don’t look up for very long any more (broke vertebrae) so I was just glancing upward and getting three of four in hand, dropping those in the bucket at my feet, then straining for another cluster.

I was on my tiptoes when I felt something cross my left hand, which was holding the branch down to plucking level. I cast my eye thataway, not releasing my grip on the branch.

The most beautiful little green snake I’ve ever seen was coiled around my wrist. Since it was facing east, the sun made its eyes positively gleam.

Now, I’ve been struck three times by poisonous snakes, and have killed literally thousands of snakes in my life (snakeskin jackets were our motivation). I can recognize a poisonous snake instantly. This ‘un was not a bad ‘un.

I stood there as the little serpent slowly coiled around my wrist, forearm, and elbow on its way down to another branch. His glistening eyes were not six inches from mine as he paused to say “Thanks,” and got off onto another fig branch.

I grinned a “You’re welcome,” and continued plucking figs.