Winged cross design forming a heart shape

The Bramleys are dropping faster than we can pick them, so Dad has given up on the ladders and lets them fall into the long grass, where the wasps are drunk on them by eleven. I went down the far rows this morning with the barrow and found a barn owl under the Conference pear. It wasn't hurt, just stopped. Its wings had folded up on themselves into the shape Mum used to make with her hands when we were small and wanted a bedtime story. I put it in the hedge bottom where the fox won't look.

Two of the long flight feathers had come loose, so I've enclosed them, one in this envelope and one tucked in the back of the atlas you left. Don't let Mrs Pryce see you with them. She'll say they bring bad luck to a house. I don't believe her. I believe Dad when he says the owl was simply old.

The cross is still on the gatepost where you nailed it in the spring, two lengths of ash lath tied with baler twine. The twine has gone grey and the wind keeps turning it sideways, so every time I pass I straighten it, the way you're meant to. I did it again this morning, and the feathers in the hedge shivered.

Come home for the picking. Bring your wages and your gloves. The tree by the gate has finally given fruit that won't sit in the barrow without rolling off, and I want you to see it before the frost takes the last of the leaves.

Love, Edie