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VISIT MINNESOTA MONTHLY ON THE WEB Online Article Index		Every year, the huge, ugly old apple tree in my backyard grows bigger, uglier, and older. This bully of a tree forces even the neighboring burr oak to bend its gnarly branches. It drops bushels of small, hard, inedible, greenish-yellow fruit. Every once in a while—just for good measure—it flings off one of its long heavy branches. After years of raking up rotting fruit and limbs, my husband and I agreed that the tree must go. We'd already cut down and hauled away two other apple trees that were much smaller and very diseased. But Old Bully was enormous—too big for our small chainsaw. We called in tree trimmers to give us a bid. It was the second of the two, the one in cowboy boots, who shifted the perimeters of my world. He circled the tree several times, then smelled and examined the fruit. "This is not an apple tree." "Really? What is it?" "A pear tree. It's the biggest damned pear tree I've ever seen anywhere, let alone in Minnesota." A pear tree? The biggest in Minnesota? Mouths open, we stared at the huge, heavy limbs, the multiple trunks, the greenish fruit. We sniffed the 2-inch- round "apple" and felt the mottled skin. It did have something of a squat pear shape. When cut open, a faint pear scent emanated. How could we have deceived ourselves into believing otherwise? Because pear trees don't grow in Minnesota. Do they? They certainly didn't grow in semi-arid western North Dakota where I came from. Nor along the Red River of the North where my husband was born. I didn't think pear trees grew anywhere in the upper Midwest. Pears are too tropical, too exotic, too fragile for the short, dry summers and long winters of the north. Aren't they? Yet there it was. In our backyard. A 50-foot pear tree. One of a kind. The "fruit of the gods," as Homer would say. A tree that blocked its neighbor's branches because it was mightier than the oak. Suddenly the tree became unique, aesthetically pleasing, even beautiful. Its large-leafed limbs shaded a fourth of the yard. Crows, jays, and squirrels cackled at each other from its craggy branches. It produced fruit, which the geese loved to peck. Neighborhood dogs and children chased and tossed the ³balls.² Was the fruit really inedible? Suddenly, new and exciting possibilities awaited: pear juice, pear jelly, pear cobbler, pear wine, pear seedlings to give to friends. The tree became a source of knowledge. Centuries ago, we learned, the pear was the preferred fruit of the Chinese, Greeks, and Romans. Then Louis XIV made it popular in 17th century France, and not long after, it came to America. Pear trees do grow in northern United States; Oregon and Washington produce the best. A 250-year-old pear tree grows in Maine. And smack in between those states is the University of Minnesota, which developed its own pear, the Summercrisp. I described my tree to Minnesota experts in the hopes of a specific identification. "Pear trees don't grow that tall," I was told. "It's not our common Minnesota variety." "We don't know what kind it is, but it's probably inedible because of the short season." And so, the tree remains a mystery, but with each revelation I've become more protective and appreciative. Although the tree had done its job of blossoming each spring and bearing fruit each summer, I hadn't done my job of knowing my own backyard. I'm working on becoming more aware, recognizing my trees as heady sources of scent and blossom, as pregnant living things, as symbols of art, myth, and history, as sources of knowledge and enlightenment. But I'm left with a dunghill of dismay at my readiness to cut down a tree. A perfectly healthy tree. A rare and uniquely gifted tree. How could the shift in the tree's identity so change me? Why had I chided an apple tree for not bringing forth pears? More importantly, how many pear trees had I unwittingly cut down over the years? What people, places, and things had I dismissed or lost or axed because I didn't take the time to learn their full measure? Nothing much has changed in our backyard. The pear tree continues to drop bushels of inedible fruit, still forces the oak tree to back off, and, just last week, flung off another heavy branch. But my life is richer, larger, and more wondrous because of its presence. MM Cindy Rogers is a writer and editor in Inver Grove Heights.

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