Summer brings with it a certain set of rites and rituals — and everyone’s are personal and unique. For our summer-long ode to the season, T has invited writers to share their own. Here, the writer Chia-Chia Lin describes the fruit blitz her family experiences every year.

My husband gorges on bursting plums over the sink — five or six at a time, several times a day. He’s trying his best to help me. Summer is a fraught time for both of us.

Crowded into our small backyard are seven fruit trees: apples, pears, three kinds of plums. The trees are old, their branches brittle, but they’re brazenly fertile in their golden years. If left unpicked, fruit will thud to the grass every minute or two, like a slow, hard pulse. I can’t stand the sound: the ruthless ticking, the reminder of what I haven’t accomplished. Overnight, raccoons will host bacchanals; in the morning, every fallen fruit will be missing exactly one bite, and there will be paw prints in the soft plums. The air smells of fermentation.

My discomfort with wastefulness is lodged deep, a vestigial organ. At night, when my desk work is done and my son is sleeping, I sweat over bubbling, spitting jams in the kitchen. Inside the oven are plum cobblers, apple pies, pear muffins, apple rings. Once, my hand-cranked apple peeler sent me to urgent care. It’s a frantic season, with deadlines dictated by the speed of decay. I give my homely creations away, but I know they might end up in the trash; everyone is trying to eat less sugar. We invite children over — they love plucking things from trees — but I worry about their hauls. Will they be tossed for blemishes? My poor, ugly, old-fashioned fruit. Sometimes I fantasize about the trendier Californian fruits, the persimmons and figs and pluots.