Foraging - The Neighbor's Apple Trees

When I think back on our ancestors I think about how they lived in little log cabins and had an expanse of land and someone at some point explained to them which plants were safe to eat, which plants were to be used as medicine, and how to properly prepare food to eat. Wow... that never was in my upbringing. I was taught to drive to the grocery store, fill my cart with cheetos, pasta, and microwave dinners, and head home to my handy microwave to eat. Even as a nurse, I did not connect my health to the food I was trained to eat. I understand it now, 50 years later and ultimately 100 pounds lighter! The food we are currently eating in suburbia is killing us slowly but surely... but it can be made so "cheaply". Guess why? Because it is really not food at all! Think about our ancestors eating from the land. Meat from grass fed animals, milk from the same animals, wheat from the fields, fruit and vegetables from the land. Now that was a balanced diet. While they did die prematurely from infections and disease, they did not suffer from an obesity epidemic, rampant diabetes, heart disease, cancers, crippling auto-immune diseases, etc, at the rate we are seeing now. I believe it is largely related to the contamination of our "food" supply, water supply, air, and even many of the common practice we have developed in order to become civilized and live the good life. Soo... back to nature... In my recent quest to live as close to nature as the city will allow me to do, I have begun more gardening of food, shopping differently in the grocery stores, canning, dehydrating, eating more organically, and removing all the pre-packaged food from my family's diet. But I will tell you that this can get a bit expensive. Are we worth it? Absolutely! Although it has forced me to become more creative and less wasteful in my life. Back to foraging. I live in a cul-de-sac in a suburb in Des Moines. I walk the neighborhoods on occasion to get a little exercise and many times take my 11 year old daughter on walks with me. A few months ago, we were about 4 blocks away, when I almost tripped on the sidewalk... over an apple. Now being a city girl by nature, I could not figure out how the apple got on the sidewalk until my daughter pointed up and said "look, an apple tree". OMG.. I rarely have even seen an apple tree in the "wild".. but indeed it has shiny red apples hanging all over it. Upon further inspection, there were lots of apples in various stages of decay all over the yard. I walked on by in wonder.... The next day I made her return to the house with me so she could nonchalantly pick up one of the apples so we could bring it home and taste it. Yes, I made her do it. I did not want to get caught stealing someone's apples and I figured she would be more easily forgiven. We were not caught. We rushed home with our prize to taste and lo and behold, it was a GREAT apple. I was skeptical about the success of the next plan but had to try it. I made her return with me a third night with the intention of knocking on the door of the house with the apples. Of course I took the cowardly road when the garage door was open and his phone number was right there on a magnetic sign on the back of his pickup truck advertising his business. We took note and rushed home. You guessed it! The next day I called the number and told the man that I was a neighbor and his apple trees were very nice. I then asked him if he picked them because they were all over his yard. He responded that he had no use for the apples so they were a nuisance to him. MANNA FROM HEAVEN! I offered to come pick them and clean up his yard and he agreed. It was a family affair. Mike and I don't know how to properly pick apples but we drove over there with a couple of buckets and a ladder and got to picking. Even with 2 buckets FULL there were many more we could not reach. We shook the trees, chased apples down the driveway, got hit in the head with apples, and generally got a great workout for 2 days cleaning up all his apples. I would say we reached about 200 pounds of free apples by the time we were done. Can I mention here that I am sick of apples? LOL I spent weeks processing all those apples and battling gnats in my kitchen. We have an endless supply of applesauce, apple butter, dried apples, and canned apples for pies. I made a dozen apple dumplings and we have eaten tons of fresh apples. THEN I discovered that they make a device called an apple picker. It looks like this:

This is definitely on my wish list for next year's apple picking season!! See, I told you I was new at this pioneering thing! There is so much to learn.