A couple of days ago I saw a notice on a community bulletin board, that someone had a surplus of organic peaches that they were interested in bartering for something else. Usually something like that wouldn’t draw any attention from me, but the day before we had picked all of those pears I told you about. So, I mused to myself, maybe I could trade some free pears for some free peaches, and have more of a variety of fruits.
I called the number, and today went over to make the trade. She had posted about two weeks ago, when she had loads of peaches, and was now at the very end of the peaches. Though one other person called her, I was the only one who ended up actually showing up. Because there were so few left, we only got 7 pounds, and traded for an equal amount of pears. Even though it wasn’t a large amount of fruit, it was still worth it – it turned out she lived just a few minutes away from me, by foot, so I walked over with my 7 and 9 year olds, and it was a pleasant outing with them.
The kids picked while I chatted with her, and asked her about what else she was growing. She showed me her herbs, gave me some tarragon to take home today, and offered to give me some tarragon for replanting and strawberry plants for my garden if I wanted to come back in September; she told me she could give me some black eyed Susans as well, but I told her I’m sticking to investing my time and limited gardening space on things that are edible.
Since she’s a financial planner, we chatted a little about the economy and I asked her if she saw people making noticeable changes in how they’re managing their money. She told me that she sees a lot of people living above their means with significant credit card debt, and that there seems to be a big disconnect between how people want to live and what they can actually afford. She thinks that with food costs going up, that next year there will be more interest in the kind of bartering the two of us did.
A few minutes from there, on the way home, we passed the home of someone who had given us permission to pick their apples last week. I hadn’t planned to pick them today, but since my husband said he picked one this morning on the way home and they seemed ready, I figured maybe I could get some since we were already right there. We picked 26 pounds of apples, and will go back in a couple of weeks for more, plus there are still the two apple trees of the second person for us to pick from. I’m planning to make lots of applesauce. I think next week we’ll also go back for more pears.
Avivah
