This week, we explore a backyard agricultural phenomenon, an apricot tree so heavy with fruit that, in spite of thinning and culling, three large limbs have snapped! I call this phenomenon “overbearing.”
Isn’t that what you call someone who’s really bossy?
That’s one meaning, 9. Let’s see if the dictionary can tell us more:
Overbearing: For something this important I am not trusting what AI generates online! Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged © 1979, page 1274.
Interesting. “Overbear” has a fruit inference, but “overbearing” has to do with human behavior.
Lily, I find it entirely appropriate that both words are verbs, because this apricot tree is definitely an action item! Every day I pick the ripe and damage ones, thin the unripe ones and gather the ground fall to keep it from turning squishy underfoot. Plus, if you let apricots ferment where they fall, it’s likely the neighborhood magpie family will swoop down and eat them until they become intoxicated!
I think it’s funny when they stagger around!
That’s because you’ve never been to a high school keg party. Imagine a drunk magpie barfing on your shoes!
It’s tempting to anthropomorphize the apricot tree.
To what?
Here you go, on page 79:
Anthropomorphize: When the overbearing tree takes on the characteristics of an overbearing person!
Do you actually feel bullied by the apricot tree?
Indeed I do! Because not only does the fruit have to be picked, I need to find nearby folks to share it with (two boxes out the door already), and wash and process what I can’t give away. Harvest in perhaps 20% done and there are two gallons of apricot halves in my freezer. I’ve made a batch of apricot-chia seed jam, and used fresh cots in pancakes, salads, oatmeal and desserts. I’m nearly apricoted out!
“Apricoted out” sounds weird. Is that in the dictionary?
Not in Webster’s. Not even AI makes a wild stab at a definition. From my own dictionary © 2025:
apricoted out: n. A physical and emotional state in humans, the result of having picked, processed and consumed too many apricots in too short a time.
The tree itself is getting apricoted out!
There you go, anthropomorphizing again.
A recent photo, illustrating the last snapped limb:
Overbearing: It can lead to broken limbs!
Poor thing!
Remarkably, there’s still enough connection to the trunk to allow the green fruit to ripen. On the other two broken limbs, it was pretty much a loss.
Nature. Not quite a friend, not exactly an enemy. What Hollywood calls a “frenemy” (not in the 1979 print Webster’s, but in their current online edition).
Time to haul the dehydrator up from the basement. I figure dried apricots will take up less space than quart bags of raw halves. Certainly I’ll be happy when I pull these out to enjoy in winter, when this overbearing episode is a distant, amusing memory, and I again dream of fresh apricots in the summer.
