I've always been touched by apple trees that I come upon whose bounty has been left unpicked. Their beautiful little gifts to the earth, and the creatures, left on a roadside like a forgotten coffee cup. At least the worms and dirt, and birds, benefit. As I go for my walk with Huck up country roads, there are many apple trees, and this year I started picking the fallen fruit, carrying it home from walks in my giant coat pockets. I feed some to Rudy, the lonely horse in a nearby field, who sees us coming and knows it means apples. It is perhaps his only interaction that day with a human.
This year I went one step further, and drove to various road side trees and picked the apples in quantities for my donkeys and Boone. An apple a day. I have one yearling ewe, little Olive Oil, the runt triplet of this years crop, who loves her morning apple. None of the other ewes are interested [although they like apple sauce].
And so I had apples on my mind, when a few weeks ago I saw a news bite on a woman in California who was also moved by all the fruit in her neighborhood going unpicked. She started knocking on doors and asking people if she could pick their fruit and donate it to shelters. Soon, she had others helping, and then more people started the same activity in their own neighborhoods. Bravo for her. Bravo! But it reminded me of my apples, and I thought, next year, maybe, I can get people to pick the apples, and donate them to needy equine people, to get them through these difficult economic times. I wait until the wormy ones fall, and the bruised ones get left behind. The unwanteds can still find use in an equine belly.
So I painted this quiet little piece yesterday. For all those apples.
