We hike on a trail near our house. Once it was part of the orchards that used to surround this area, and after that, it was railroad land. It still is technically owned by the railroad company, but hasn't been used for many years and has been used by people as a dog-walking or mountain biking area. Well, our family discovered a wonderful apple tree. Most of the apples on the lower branches had fallen to the ground and had bites in them from squirrels and birds, but the upper branches were just chock-full of great apples. So, having an apple tree ourselves (that has been picked by our neighbors, by us, by our squirrels), we happen to have an apple picking pole and we brought it along to pick apples. We got a bag and a bucket-full and are checking out pie recipes. It's so much fun to get free fruit and I feel like we are making good use of something that no one would have used.
