It amazes me how the lure of something sweet has made so many people in my neighborhood become thieves lately.

Our neighbor across the street has a peach tree.

I remember the first year we moved into our house (June 2001) I could see orange blossoms and then what appeared to be some kind of fruit in the tree. I never did investigate what it was as we were so busy renovating that year that I barely had time to look at my own yard let alone the neighbors. However I did see people walking along the street stopping at the house and reefing on the tree branches to pull off what I thought at the time were pretty flowers.

I think growing Peaches is a little iffy in this area. For most of this decade winters here in Toronto have been fairly cold with little snow. I’ll bet that’s not that great for a lot of fruit producing trees as they likely get a lot of winter damage.

You see, I don’t think my neighbors tree has produced any fruit since that summer of 2001. I know I watched for the tree to bloom the following year or two and I didn’t see anything special, nor did I see people in the neighborhood paying particular attention to that neighbors yard.

This past winter we had a ton of snow. I guess the neighbors peach tree liked it because it’s just covered in fruit this year. So much so that there’s peaches all over the sidewalk and half the street in front of the house!

One reason why there are so many peaches on the ground is because at least 20 people a day seem to be stopping off at the house, walking into the neighbors yard and yanking on the branches of the tree.

Most of the people doing this will knock down a number of peaches yet they’ll only take one or two peaches leaving the rest to rot on the ground.

I have no idea if our neighbors mind these peach stealing intrusions, but considering how rough some of the people are on the tree I think I’d mind if it that tree was in my yard. Plus they have to clean up the mess that the thieving neighbors left behind.

The raccoons are having a great time in the peach tree too. I have to be careful each night when I bring my puppy outside to do her business as the last few days I’ve seen several raccoons prowling around.

Of course when I’ve watched they eventually head over to that peach tree, climb up and then start throwing peaches down onto the neighbors recycling bin. Then the raccoon will climb down and go over to where it’s peaches landed and eat them right by the neighbors back door under their security light. Smart eh? At least the raccoons hand pick their fruit and then eat what they took off the tree unlike their human counterparts!

If you had a neighbor with a fruit tree and you wanted some of the fruit would you just help yourself when the neighbor didn’t seem to be around or would you wait and ask permission to take some of the fruit?