The joy of harvest

Even though the greatest joy in life is to love and be loved in return, there is something extremely fulfilling about harvesting, especially if it involves apples, the best fruit in the world by far. Have you ever noticed how much 'real estate' in a produce aisle is devoted to apples? Because they are the most versatile of any fruit and so delicious - well, unless they are called delicious :). The apple tree in the picture is at Red Apple Farms, a fantastic old farm that is a good hour away, but worth every minute of traveling there.



I used to have reservations regarding fruit picking. As a child I was forced to go into the woods with my mother to find mushrooms and pick blueberries. The mushrooms were completely camouflaged and avoided detection and the blueberries were so tiny, growing on low scraggly bushes, in short I hated those excursions as a kid. Then a few years back, me and the girls met some other family for blueberry picking at one of the local farms and I became instantly addicted to picking fruits.

There are few things as satisfying as harvesting and I think that is due to it being literally satisfying, satisfying the need for sustenance that is. Gathering something as essential to life as nourishment is a task so basic, that it appeals to something deep within us. I find the same holds true to tasks like chopping wood for example. When I was in grad school, my room was heated with a little wood/coal stove and bizarre as it sounds, I liked going into the basement and chopping wood and filling the coal bucket, since it related to something essential for my survival: heat. In our complex and modern lives is very little space for basic tasks, we are all accustomed to comfortable convenience. When visiting old farms like Artemas Ward's farm, most visitor have the same reaction: so much work! But I find that I yearn for such simplicity, where there is a lot of work, but the work is all related to one's own life and survival. I absolutely love the idea of growing trees for cutting down the wood to make furniture, or have sheep for wool to make sweaters and socks, grow flax for spinning linen thread and weaving it into fabric and dying it with plant material.

Oh well, this makes me think of Tasha Tudor again, I am sure she would understand exactly what I am trying to say. Alas, since I live in this crazy, modern world, outings like apple picking have to satisfy my need for 'basic'.