Just a reminder that apples ACTUALLY FOR REAL GROW ON TREES!

I'm emerging from my blog-apathy to tell you that this planet is beautiful and amazing.  I mean, as far as humans go, the world is a steaming pile of garbage, generally, and that covers some damage to this wonderful planet as well.

However, an apple tree recently reminded me that sometimes nature is oblivious to some awful things.  In no particular order...

-wars
-women being treated poorly by men
-men getting away with it
-people who aren't white being treated badly by white people
-white people getting away with it
-animals being abused
-children being abused
-leadership power being abused
-humans being gullible enough to believe anything they're told - especially when what they're told is mean spirited and cruel and degrading and potentially harmful
-being surrounded by all this crap on TV and movies and newspapers and the internets
-humans consuming shamelessly
-humans generating garbage

Did I cover it all?  If I left something out, please don't add it in the comments.  I just wanted to get that out of the way and then NOT think about it anymore.  That stuff is all over the news, and it's hard to get away from it.  Let's take a break.

Down the road and around the corner, there's a tiny little farm.  The house is old and kinda rickety, but it's obviously cared for, with new siding and a nice side porch.  The yard is clean, the flowers look happy, and there's a vegetable garden.  There are also about five apple trees along the side of the road.

I like to walk my dog that direction.  This street is the next best thing to living in the country, and I often need that.

This time of year, the apple trees are so heavy with fruit that it falls off the branches.  There are apples in the ditch, smelling sweet and rotten and slightly fermented in the sun.  It's been an abnormally hot September.  Cars drive over ripe apples that have rolled onto the road.  Pavement applesauce.

It bothers me to waste food in any case, but I thought at least, I could grab a few that landed on the ground with very little damage, and take them out to the farm to give my horses.  I'm pretty sure that would be ok, right?  Maybe it looks weird in this privileged country, to be scavenging apples off the side of the road, but where's the shame in that, right?  I don't think it's stealing, is it?

Well, happily, I found out that the owners don't mind if someone picks apples.  They're not doing it, somebody might as well.  At the very least, it'll clean up the grass a little, make it easier to mow.

I filled a bag with the small red apples, with a tinge of paleness on one side, and little bumps on the bottom.  I ate a few.  They were just a little bit sour under the sweetness.  My dad ate a few.  They were good.  I gave the horses one each for a couple days and they chewed and slobbered blissfully.

I grabbed a few hard little yellow apples.  The horses loved them.  They are very hard and bitter, so probably what my grandmothers would have called baking apples.  I might not get around to baking them.

One tree has big red apples.  I'd taken a few out of the grass, but one day a beautiful apple fell out of the tree right in front of me.  I stuck that one in my pocket.  Later, when I ate it, I felt like all of nature was singing to me that the world is still good, and the planet isn't done yet, and there is sweetness and perfection in the humblest places!  It was possibly the best apple I've ever eaten.  (No wonder the horses looked ecstatically happy!)  That apple was so good, I hoped God won't chase me out of the garden or something.

I haven't been down that direction for a few days.  I think tomorrow I'll take the Pug down the road, with a bag over my shoulder, and a hoodie with really big pockets.