Equals the gift of free food? Margy and I went to Winslow Park beach yesterday and visited our favorite apple tree. It was surrounded by ripe apples on the ground.
We have gathered apples from this tree in some other years–but in November. And never so big or abundant as these. 
Our friend Bob made delicious applesauce at our house that November. The best applesauce ever! (Well, recently, our friend Susan gave us a gift of homemade applesauce that might compete for that title of best ever.)
We scooped up a couple dozen apples, and carried them in our pockets back to our car, and then to our house.
Back home, we turned on some music (Eliza Gilkyson’s Beautiful World), put parmesan chicken in the oven (Johnson family recipe), sat at the island counter in our kitchen, and cut and cored the apples. We cooked them in a pot with just a bit of water. Nothing else needed. Then we sat down to Christmas dinner, with hearts full of gratitude.
Finding Our Way Home 
nothing but apples; nothing like apples.
Up here in Raymond where it is mostly rural we always have leftover apples and an abundance of pears from an old variety, Kieffer, that isn’t particularly sweet or juicy but really abundant. After we pick what we need and neighbors come too, there is still plenty left for the wildlife. Turkeys, deer and a fat little porcupine reap the harvest. I’m sure there are more critters, possums, racoons? Glad to accommodate them all! And, yummm, homemade apple sauce!