Apple Butter - Shared Fruit & Energy

What do you get when ten lbs of Mr. Bohannon's apples meet up with
the neighbors recent purchase?

Making apple butter was not on my agenda this weekend, yet being prone to spontaneity and finally stopping at a neighbor's apple stand led to doing just that.

We've passed the sign reading: "Apples for Sale" numerous times but only this weekend did I hear myself saying, "Stop."

Jerry's accustomed to this whether I'm wanting to take an impromptu photo or remove a dead animal from the road.

We pulled over and I asked the gentleman, I came to learn was Mr. Bohannon, if his apples were good for making apple butter. With a quiet authority he said, "Come here" and led me to a long makeshift plywood table. He took a laminated sheet of paper and with a finger traced down the page to the three types of apples he grew. Then he read aloud whether his apples were suitable to be baked, buttered or sauced.

I asked for a half bucket to which Mr. Bohannon promptly commanded, "If you're making apple butter, don't waste your time on a half bucket. You need a whole."

For only five extra dollars, we drove away with at least fifty apples and I drove away remembering my love of rural folk, people often judged for their simple ways.

We got home and the apples went to another room as I thought, 'What have I done?' The last and only time I made apple butter, I stood in the kitchen for a half day peeling apples only to end up with four jars of butter, the last of which just got opened, and numb hands from the repetitive motion. I debated giving the apples away, freezing a few or parceling them out to the deer and raccoons on weekends I'm in the country.

My desire was further dampened when I went on-line to look at recipes. This was more than overwhelming and even more disconcerting since I didn't have the peeler, crock pot or food mill recommended.

Somewhere in trying to decide what to do I called the neighbors across the street for the name of the local market and shared my kitchen venture. That's when Jonna shared she had just bought a peeler. What synchronicity!

I rail about aspects of the industrial revolution and how machinery despite its benefiting me has contributed to our cultural disconnect from nature which at times seems to be a chasm more than a disconnect.

In contrast I was amazed and grateful for this machine that allowed me to peel, core and slice 32 apples in under thirty minutes. For fun I even timed myself and processed three apples in one minute. This may sound strange or just more evidence of my simpleness but I truly held wonder for every nut, bolt, spring, blade, cog and piece of metal that went into this machines creation and I was grateful for the minds that created these simple parts that became part of a greater whole.

Thirty-two apples reminiscent of Japanese lanterns went into the pot. Combined with spices, sugar and apple juice, they cooked for half the day before being poured into jars and canned.

Creating in the kitchen, feeds my soul when the handmade is heart made. I wondered if my grandmothers ever felt similarly or did they toil in the kitchen solely to survive. I wondered if the men (or women) who invented and made the apple peeler put their heart, not just their minds, into the making of this great little device.

Mr. Bohannon's apples and my neighbor's peeler led to much more than apple butter for me. I shared in the fruits of ideas creating inventions, fruits of the seed of shared energy between Earth, sun, rain and tree, neighbors and me and now thanks to the internet with you.

And I glimpsed how just as the apple peeler is made of parts creating a greater whole, we too, rural and urban, east and west, north and south, red and yellow, black and white, we all are part of a greater whole which is enriched and strengthened when the parts are appreciated.

-Dawn,The Good News Muse 27 Sept. 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com