 I have always really liked the look of palm trees. Warm weather and exotic locations are the first things that come to my mind when I see one–whether it’s real or in a photograph. There are many palm trees here in Kuwait and it is wonderful to be surrounded by them for shade and for visual appeal. |
 Over the past couple of weeks I noticed that many palm trees have green plastic mesh bags hanging from them. My colleagues told me that those trees are beginning to produce their date “fruit” and workers put the bags over the bunches of fruit to: a) keep the birds away from them, and b) keep the fruit from falling to the ground as they ripen. Ripe dates are very sticky so apparently they can make quite a mess if they fall to the ground and left there. |
 From a distance the dates look like huge bunches of green grapes. It is amazing to see the bounty of these trees appear so quickly. I am used to watching apple trees take months to produce their fruit. The bunches of dates seemed to appear almost overnight. |
| The breakfast buffet at our hotel has fresh dates every day and I have gotten in the habit of eating several of them each day. They taste so fresh compared to the dates we get back home. Now I know a little bit more about dates and have gained a whole new level of appreciation about where they come from. 🙂 |