La vie est dur sans confiture

There once was a man who lived in the country who had a beautiful orchard of cherry trees. Everyone in the surrounding villages knew him and he loved to share his cherry harvest every year with them.

Many people in the villages also had fruit trees in their yards. The man would come into the villages to help them take care of their trees. He would prune them, and tell the people how to take proper care of their fruit trees. He did not ask for any money, but instead the people of the villages would give the man some special things from their houses. At one house he would get some bottles of homemade wine from Tuscany, at another house he would get some special cakes, at another he would get special preserves.

The man became quite old of course, and one year when he came to the villages to take care of the people`s trees, he told them that this was the last year he could help them. He was getting too old to prune trees anymore. The people were sad, but they understood.

The next season, the man died. And and odd thing happened that same season... the man`s 80 cherry trees stopped producing fruit. Without the man`s attention, the trees just didn`t produce anymore, and they had to be chopped down.

The next season the man`s daughter in law came into the villages and came to the people and told them that the man had taught her all he knew about fruit trees, and from then on she helped them take care of their trees.