Apricot Disaster!

When we decided to buy this house there was a huge tree in the back yard, and jokingly I told Troy, "I bet it's apricot" (we couldn't tell yet, it was too early for blossoms.) That seems to be our blessing/curse. Troy HATES apricots, and our first house had a huge apricot tree in the yard too. When we moved in there the neighbors told us not to worry about it because it had never had fruit on it. Well, wouldn't you know, the first summer we lived there that tree was LOADED with huge beautiful apricots. I canned and canned,(I like them, and so did the day care kids, and then later, my kids) and gave a bunch away, and still there were a ton that fell on top of Troy's truck, and made a huge mess, and made him cuss under his breath, and threaten to cut the tree down. (We also have a curse with cutting trees down, but that is better left for another post, I'm bitter about it:) So anyway, by the time we moved into this house sure enough, it was loaded with apricots. Not knowing much about it, we didn't spray the tree last year, and bugs took over, and we ended up not getting any apricots. That was fine, we were still finishing off the stuff I had canned two years before that. Then this year I decided that I wanted to get some fruit off of it, so we pruned, and fertilized, and sprayed, and took care of it. (By we I mean me, Troy was too busy cutting down our weeping willow tree and apple tree. Again, bitter, so I won't go into it) Well, we ended up with about two million apricots on the tree. I didn't know that it was a good idea to thin some of them out early on, so I didn't, and we have millions of small apricots. Well, I have spent over a week canning, I have 25 quarts of juice, 25 quarts of halves, 25 jars of jam,(plenty for our family) and have dried a bunch, and made a ton of fruit leather. I am happy about that, I really have been trying for the year to build up our food storage, and this helps a lot. But I also picked buckets and buckets for friends and neighbors, and even put a bulletin in the Relief Society news letter that anyone who wants some could come and get them. Still with all of that, we have loads still left in the tree. And they are really ripe now, so they just fall right off the tree, and get all over the lawn, and the swing set, and the hot tub, and the tree house. It is a mess. I have been raking them up so that they don't make a huge mess on the lawn, but this morning as I was raking them, they kept falling on me and splattering all over the place. I am starting to get the same opinion of apricots as Troy has! Oh, and Ethan thinks its hilarious to climb up in the tree house and pick them and throw them at unsuspecting people, or over the fence into the apartment parking lot. We keep seeing people drive past with apricot smear all over their wind shield, and I am worried that they are going to retaliate in some way. It has turned out to be quite a disaster. Why on earth did I think this would be a good idea? Oh well, it could be worse, I guess. We could have a million cats instead of a million apricots. Oh, the thought of that just made me throw up in my mouth a little, I guess I will count my blessings (and REALLY prune that tree )...