The Apple Tree

I was busy cleaning carpets yesterday, so , at first, didn't hear the mechanical digger doing it's stuff on the plot of land beyond the bottom of our garden.
I was only aware of things after two Jehovah Witnesses waved at me through the cottage window. They seem to decend on the village in groups from time to time, but never really stay long here after I remind them I am a married gay man.
" Would You happily support gay marriage in your church? " I always ask them, it's a question I've never got a straight answer to, even though all they manage to answer is the willing offer to talk to me.
Anyhow, as usual, I digress.
Behind our cottage garden is a small square of land . Years ago used to be part of the small holding and furnished a small orchard, vegetable beds and flower borders, but in times gone by the plot , which was owned by the nephews of a former owner of Bwthyn -y-llan , had been left untouched and unloved.
Now we all knew that the nephews want to sell the land as a single bungalow building plot, so it was only a matter of time when they wanted it cleared in order to move it on, but ever since we came to the village, eleven years ago, I have used the wilderness as my own private secret garden.

Anyhow like I said, as  I was busy dispatching the Jehovahs, I heard the rumble of the digger, and walked up the lane to the old garden . Most of the land had already been cleared. The old shed, full of old potting up equipment and dusty old garden tools had been flattened, the massive honeysuckle which bordered it cleared and the flower beds crammed with daffodil bulbs dug up and scattered amongst untidy lumps of soil.

The man operating the digger stopped and called over to me. He was a contracted workman and understood the surprise of the neighbours , several of whom had already stopped him to see what was going on.
He asked me if there was anything I wanted him not to touch, presumably the shrubs that bordered our small driveway, but I noticed a single apple tree still standing in the centre of the plot heavy with apples.
" Can you leave the tree a while longer?" I asked
" I'll see what I can do" he said with a friendly smile

The apple tree

Later I walked over to the cleared garden,  and I noticed that the three bachelor bantams, had wandered up from the Ukrainian Village to see what had been going on . I scooped all three up from the side of the lane to keep them out of the way of the farm tractors.
The old garden looked dreadful, but the workman had been true to his word
The apple tree was the only thing left standing .

The bantam batchelors