Pat’s Wildways: Pork and Grapes

Last week I found myself driving a dirt road to nowhere, outside of Gainesville, trying to find the High Springs Orchard). I somehow missed the orchard and ended up at a dead end in someone’s very rural backyard. And, while I was calling the orchard to find out where I was, the door to the house opened. Oh no. Am I trespassing? Will there be bad consequences? What now?

But soon I was chatting with the young farm owner, Benjamin Foster, who happily greeted me, gave me directions back up the dirt road, and then told me about his farm and his local history. He and his wife and kids moved back to this area where he was raised to raise their own family near his parents. Then he asked, “Do you like pork?” “Sure,” I said. "Why?” He answered, “I want to give you some.” Really, I thought, but why not? So I followed him into his garage, where he rummaged around a chest freezer and soon emerged with four packs of butchered pork cuts: spare ribs, picnic roast, pork chops and panfry. “Are you giving this to me?” I asked in astonishment. And yes, he was and did. Incredible!

I settled the frozen meat in the correctly sized cooler I just happened to have in my trunk and headed off back up the now familiar and friendly dirt road to the orchard at its entrance. How I missed it the first time going by, who knows, but when I arrived there at last, I was warmly greeted by a worker who laughed at my mistaken dirt road journey and marveled at my haul of free pork.

For an hour or so I wandered through the High Springs Orchard, admiring the trees. Although it is a U-Pick place I was more interested in taking photos than picking fruit. I dutifully carried around a little basket to collect my finds, but I was mostly just in awe of their fruit trees. It was a warm day, but I was so distracted I barely noticed. I happily inspected the rows of chestnut trees with their prickly green- covered casings. I looked at the persimmons on the scores of trees, but was sorry to see that they are not ripe yet. In the back of the property, pear trees were neatly lined up with their, alas, also unripe fruit hanging from the limbs. I now aim to return in a few weeks to actually harvest some pears and persimmons myself.

In the end I did manage to find some ripe fruit I couldn’t resist: muscadine grapes and figs. I gathered a few handfuls for my basket and set off back to their office/shop to pay. A bucket of freshly harvested chestnuts was on their counter and I reached out to touch them but was cautioned. Apparently picking and cleaning chestnuts requires gloves, who knew, but looking at them closely I can see why. And when I tried to buy my little basket of grapes, they refused my money. “I’m glad you were having fun today. And you can have those grapes for free.” Wow, now I had free grapes to go with my free pork. What a surprising twist to my day!

At home the next day, I tossed my pork picnic roast into my Crockpot along with all of the grapes. I added a touch of wine vinegar for tartness, some frozen vegetable stock from my freezer, some cut-up potatoes, and rosemary and thyme sprigs from my garden, and let the pot do its thing all day. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better-tasting pork roast! And the fact that the pork and grapes were given to me made it all so much more rewarding.

I highly recommend a trip out to High Springs Orchard, about two hours away from Amelia Island. The back roads getting there are always interesting and wandering through the orchard is a delight. If you hope to drive to High Springs to do this too, give the orchard a call first at 352-222-1762 to find out what fruit is ripe and to schedule a visit. If you go there, note that it is right at the start of the dirt road, 105th Place, not at the very end. But if you do miss the orchard like I did, don’t worry. Benjamin Foster will be there to guide you to safety. This was one wrong turn I’ll forever be grateful for. And soon enough, I will be back.

Pat Foster-Turley, Ph.D., is a zoologist on Amelia Island. She welcomes your nature questions and observations. patandbucko@yahoo.com