Windfall

This season is turning out to be a fertile one. Trees are laden and bushes bend under the weight of their fruitfulness. We have been picking raspberries, strawberries, redcurrants, cherries, nectarines, plumcots and blackcurrants till the shelves are full of jams, jellies, fruit leathers and cordials, the freezer's contents are red and the excess is bubbling away into wine. The sweet tooth inherited on the paternal side has enjoyed the crumbles, the stewed fruit and the fools (also on the paternal side!). A delicious abundance with plenty of other varieties to come.
The great thing about fattening piglets is not just the juicy pork roasts in winter; the abundance never becomes an excess. Fallen fruit, those endless zucchinis stretching into marrows, plants bolting in the garden all have a destination and help fuel porcine expansion. Excess and waste are limited to those few foods that piglets won't devour.
So when a branch snaps from an old apple tree (which has been shocked from its first prune in decades into producing heavily) it is an opportunity and not a loss.  This morning a clean up team swung into action and collected buckets of fallers. Finding jobs like this that involve the children increases the benefits to include joy and smiles as well as the promise of this year's roasts.

The Clean Up Team with their Bounty