Hiram, Ohio, September 2018
Baking and Composting with Apples
September 2018
I had just casually toured the nearby Hiram College campus in September 2018 with my boyfriend, now my spouse. He attended there years ago. The college was a small, liberal arts school. The buildings looked stately. It looked like a place to widen one’s experiences. After walking on campus, we stopped at the apple farm for enjoyment. With visits to a school and an apple farm in succession, the tradition of giving an apple to one’s teacher came to mind.
While studying at school introduced me to new ideas, I still learned very valuable things from my mother. In fact, she deserves an apple for being such a great teacher! Mom taught me baking techniques, such as baking apples, and how to compost scraps like apple cores. Both things were possible to learn in our home. I care about sending apple cores and other food scraps to the compost heap – and not to the landfill where they would generate methane, a greenhouse gas that adds to climate change. People who put apple cores to good use in compost, where they break down into soil fertilizer and can be used to enhance a garden, are taking good care of the earth.
This responsibility has been accepted by the younger generation, as I found out years after initially touring the Hiram College campus. According to the college’s website, students compost their food scraps from the on-campus dining room. The large-scale effort has been led by a committee since 2020, and the organic material resulting from the compost is distributed to the school garden and James H. Barrow Biological Field Station.
Composting should be a part of my commitment to God and to Earth as well. I must tend to this world, God’s creation, that has given me so much. Johnny Appleseed – his name sounds like that of a legendary character - traversed great distances to plant an abundance of apple trees across the Ohio River Valley, according to Smithsonian Magazine. He is also known as John Chapman, a clergyman, and he planted trees in Ohio, too, according to the same magazine. As a young child, at mealtimes my family and I sang the Johnny Appleseed song as our thanks. The lyrics say, “Oh, the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed. The Lord is good to me. Amen.”
I felt like such an enlightened person after visiting the campus and orchard. I have not been a student for many years, but going back to a college campus in the beginning of fall and visiting an apple orchard reminded me that I value my learning opportunities. I took a bag of apples home that day just in case I found a teacher on my way. Then I would have something to give them.
Works
Cited
Binkovitz, Leah. “Why Do
Students Give Teachers Apples and More from the Fruit’s Juicy Past.” Smithsonian
Magazine, 5 Sept. 2012,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-do-students-give-teachers-apples-and-more-from-the-fruits-juicy-past-26381703/#lOwfk2lIGLxV6ru8.9.
“Student Compost Program.”
Hiram College, 2023?, https://www.hiram.edu/sustainability/student-compost-program/
