Waste Not, Want Not

Happy Springtime! Okay, that may be premature considering it's the middle of February. But the weather around Corvallis is glorious today. I've been in Oregon long enough to know that today's unseasonable warmth and sun could be just a sneaky trick played on the multitude of fruit trees that make up the Willamette Valley. If we have much more of this sort of weather the poor trusting trees will begin to bud, just in time for a cold snap in early March. But for today it feels like spring and I'm so so thankful for it.

Speaking of fruit trees...we are pruning ours today. We have two apple, one pear, one plum and a neglected walnut tree. We're novice fruit tree owners and everything we know about them has been learned in the past three years. Mostly on-the-job training along with a couple of books. And we've done okay. Each year we get fruit. And each year we make cider, hard cider, from it. And believe me, local drinking is even better than local eating.

It's something we've done since we first met. We bought a huge cider press before we were even married. And the first fall that we knew each other we drove down nearly every dirt road in Baker County pilfering apples from neglected roadside trees. It seemed like every ditch-bank had at least one tree so heavy with fruit it could barely stand up straight.

We have continued the tradition over here in The Valley. And there is no shortage of free fruit over here in the late summer and fall. I'm always amazed to see how much goes to waste. Apples, pears, grapes, Asian pears, plums, cherries and (of course) blackberries all stain the sidewalks in our neighborhood from late August until the rain comes back to wash it all away. I don't want to sound all High-and-Mighty, but I imagine all of those fruit-wasting households stocking up on bananas from Mexico and starfruit from wherever starfruit are from, while perfectly good food rots in their front yards. Or worse yet, stocking up on fuji apples from New Zealand instead of eating the local ones that are dropping to the ground next door. So I guess I do sound all high-and-mighty and that's not what our Lenten experiment is all about, so I'll stop ranting. Back to our fruit trees...

From the trees in our back yard, we have plum wine and apple-pear cider to drink during Lent, completely guilt-free. We also have dried, frozen and canned plums (thanks to my mom). And Luke has frozen little ice cubes of pureed pears and plums (thanks to Charlie's mom). Total food miles: zero.