Addison and I went out hunting produce today. We were looking for something to do, and I
almost brought her to the mall and pet store like I do most other days. But then I remembered Lindsay bringing home a rather runty, totally unripe avocado from one of her walks around the neighborhood. And my vision went red, and I could almost taste its slightly nutty flesh crushed between my "'cary, 'cary teef," as Addison would say (no, I don't have messed-up teeth, they're just a lot bigger than Addison's).
I'm her dad, right? I'm not just a tickle-monster or a brings-sippy cup-when-demanded-machine. I figure it's my responsibility to help bring her natural hunter/gatherer instincts to fruition. Literally. Because we're after fruit. And you can't rely on the schools to teach your kids these kinds of life skills. If the zombie apocalypse occurs and we can't make it to the supermarket because there are too many bodies in the streets, she needs to know which neighbors to steal from.
So I readied the stroller, dropped the kid into it, handed her a spear, and started running. I didn't take any precise measurement, but considering that
I'm pretty out of shape and that it's twice as hard to run while pushing a crappy stroller, we must have found all of these within less than a 2-mile circuit of our home. We stopped for a rest every time we found shade.
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| Oranges -- these are EVERYWHERE. I passed probably eight or ten overhanging the sidewalk. |
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| Limes -- these look like smaller unripe oranges, but they are FAKERS. |
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| Figs. No newtons. |
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| Poisonberries. Don't eat them, but do make iocane powder from them. |
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| Jackpot! Avocados! Hanging right over the wall above the sidewalk. |
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| Also, a prickle, which Addison did NOT want to put underneath her armpit to hatch. I wonder how my dad got us to do that willingly. |
Which brings me to another point. I've just been researching whether it's legal to pick fruit that hangs over a wall onto either your property or onto public property. What if the fruit has fallen on the ground? Do you know the answer? I've gotten a few conflicting suggestions from the web, but the web also told me that unicorns are real, and THAT ended up being embarrassing.
Obviously, if it turns out we've got a zombie problem, screw the law and the neighbors. If we need limes, we're just gonna take 'em. Don't want to get scurvy while camped out on our roof.
Barring that, it's obviously courteous to knock on a door and ask permission. But what's legal and illegal? Any thoughts/opinions/actual knowledge on the subject?
