3 Things to be Cautious of When Picking Pears

1. When you pick one pear, it is possible that 6 others will fall in sympathy. One or more of these may hit you. Most will land on the pavement, and splatter... on your shoes.

2. When you use the fantastic pear picker like mine (see this post), it has a nasty habit of getting stuck in the branches. You can wrangle it free without too much effort, but the tugging at the tree may also induce sympathy pear suicides (see # 1).

3. Your local squirrels will not admire you. In fact, they will scamper immediately to the tree where you are picking, and to the branch you are trying to pick from. They will then glare down at you while trembling in a "ready to pounce" stance. When you move to the other tree, they will follow. If you persist, they will shake the branches of the trees to induce further pear suicides (see #1). If you manage to annoy them enough to leave, they will go to the top of your roof, again poised for pouncing, and they will holler squirrel obscenities at you while you pick pears off their trees.

Note: this picture is not MY squirrel, but it could be.