Generosity

Nature is generous everywhere, even in the heart of a major city, but I believe country neighbors are much kinder and more generous than city neighbors. At least ours are.

Our neighbors knew I was putting in a garden, so they brought a large selection of onion sets and garlic cloves for planting, some seed corn for the bunnies and garden, and a few herb plants they could spare. They also brought a nice bucket of sweet peppers for us to put up for winter.

I got myself all set up with a bucket for compostable waste and another for seeds so we won’t need to buy peppers or seeds ever again. Then I got busy cleaning and halving the peppers so they could be frozen.

A couple of peppers proved that our neighbors hadn’t used any chemicals to kill pests–I’m grateful for that. I ended up with three sheet pans of halved peppers, plus a bag of bits and pieces.

We arrived near the end of apple season in Tennessee, and there’s a lovely old Milam apple tree on the property that still had plenty of fruit to share. Milam is a rare heirloom apple. It’s pretty tasty and should be a delightful source of fruit for years to come. I ended up with a five-gallon bucket full of apples.

For the apples, I set up a bowl of acidulated water and the dehydrator so I could dry some, and a pan so I could cook some apple sauce. I also saved the cores so I could save seeds, but that part of the project was abandoned due to a fruit fly invasion. Oops! We ended up with a large bag of dried apples to add to hot cereal and seven half-pints of apple butter, because I cooked too much water out of the apple sauce.

Next, the generosity of Nature continues.