Apple Magic

I have found no better way to truly celebrate the spirit of the Fall Equinox, a traditional harvest holiday, than to be outside in the warmth of the newly-autumn sunshine actually harvesting something.

I'm going to write more about what I was doing on this glorious bee-buzzing apple-laden afternoon a bit later, but I'll leave you with these pictures for the moment.....

Okay. It's later. :)

Here's a link to what I was up to:

http://www.denmangardenparties.blogspot.com/

Denman Island Community Garden Parties follow the basic principle that many hands make light work. Volunteers arrive at various farms, orchards, and vegetable gardens at specified times and dates and put in two hours of cheerful unpaid labour to support the production of fresh, organic produce.

If ten people show up, that's twenty hours of work done. If twenty people show up, a whopping great forty hours of work get done.

I'm mentally scanning a list of friends that might want to get behind this philosophy in oh, let's say, MY garden!

With a good friend by my side, and a huge canvas pouch on my front that made me feel like a kangaroo, I helped pick the gazillions of apples that grew on a mere three trees.

This in an orchard where long lanes of many, many trees populated an enormous meadow.

There were other jobs to do too, if we were willing. There were potatoes to be hoed, blackberries to be picked, and manure to be spread on the garden pathways. The few hours there sped by. I've discovered that I really enjoy outdoor work. Well, as long as the sun is shining and the breeze is cool that is.

It also helped that Fireweed and I had a really good conversation as we picked, and that we were rewarded with fresh-pressed apple cider at work's end, a few of the really good purple grapes that hung from the farmers' fence, and a good haul of apples to take back to the evening's harvest dinner back at the Denman Hall. (Those apples later met their fate in an apple crumble.)

Oh, the food at dinner was marvellous. Fresh, fresh, fresh produce made a delicious meal. Even Fireweed's lobster- mushroom soup (that's a kind of mushroom, no crustaceans were harmed in the making of this soup) was picked fresh from the forest floor. Yum!

And the dessert featured pears from an ancient tree that justy groaned with the weight of fruit. Happy Equinox to all!