Good Neighbors Share Their Figs With You

"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."  - Benjamin Franklin

"All will concede that in order to have good neighbors, we must also be good neighbors. That applies in every field of human endeavor."  - Harry S. Truman

"A good neighbor shares his figs with you" - Ernest Hemingway 

Okay, I jest.  I just made that up.  Hemingway did not say that.  It seems like something that he might say, but not that I know of.  Our neighbors have three fig trees.  They had a fourth tree, but it died last year.  The other day, the neighbors asked if we'd like some figs.  "Of course," we replied.  In two shakes of a billy goat's tail, Tricia, Benjamin and I were circling the three fig trees, picking the ripest ones.

The figs were plump and sticky sweet.  We sampled a few right off the tree.  They were real good!

An interesting fact about figs is that it is an inverted flower.  The fig itself is not technically a fruit, but is a flower.  Odd.  What's not odd is what we are going to do with the figs we gathered from the neighbor's tree.  We ate a bunch of them raw and fresh.  The rest we have frozen - about two gallons of figs are now individually frozen and stored in zip loc bags in the freezer.

We'll add the sweet frozen figs, peaches and local honey to goat kefir smoothies for breakfast.  Thank God for good neighbors who share their figs with us.