BaltimOregon to Maine

Our neighbor two houses down dropped off a gallon of home-pressed apple cider this afternoon, just because. He extracted the sweet juice from the fruit of his own overbearing tree. This same neighbor, who recently retired from Hewlett-Packard here, brought us a homemade blackberry cobbler when we moved in.

And the apples on the right are a rare Royal Gala/Fuji blend our other neighbors, both forestry folks, created from a graft on a tree in their yard. I used them to make an apple crisp. Those kind next-door neighbors have given us plums, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers from their harvest. They also lent us tables, chairs and lamps so our house wouldn’t feel so barren before our furniture arrived. Corvallis people are rather generous and always willing to lend a hand.