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@jeffowski
I forage in my local city park often; they have some really nice mulberries, black walnuts, and blackberries. Didn't know that was stealing.

@jeffowski
food trees in urban spaces is possibly the greatest missed opportunity of our recent times
but can be quickly corrected

@jeffowski

To a fascist, stealing something free that will rot if not harvested, to them means they are not the ones monetizing it for their profit.

They would charge you for the air you breathe if they could.

@SpaceLifeForm @jeffowski

Yeah, let's not give them any more ideas....ah...can't resist....

Someone will try to patent breathing when performed with oxygen.

🤬

@jeffowski I was in Portland OR last week and came across this sign next to kiwi tree loaded with fruit overhanging the sidewalk. Implicit in its message is a community offer to take from it freely once the fruit is ripe.

@jeffowski I was in Portland OR last week where I saw this sign in front of a kiwi tree loaded with fruit overhanging the sidewalk. Implicit in its message is the offer to take from it.

@jeffowski I grew up in Hawaii. Fruit trees everywhere. We picked fruit, like guava & passion fruit right off the tree during recess! The result of fruit trees everywhere… fresh snacks. Oh yeah, & the lilikoi man down at the beach that would hand out passion fruits as you walked, or ran, by! Man, I miss lilikoi man & fresh guava off the tree! 🤤 How did we get to the point that eating public food was stealing? 🤦‍♀️

@jeffowski when I was a kid, the streets of the town I grew up in had bitter orange trees lined up, lots of them, people would just pick them up and make marmalade, best I’ve ever tasted. 100% public.

@jeffowski For some truely communist countries, there's mundraub.org listing all such public sources...

mundraub.orgStartseite | mundraub.org

@jeffowski
In the village where I live, there are pear trees everywhere. The amount of pears rotting away on the ground tells me, this so called "stealing" of free food isn't much of a thing.

@jeffowski they should come to Melbourne. The councils plant heaps of fruit and nut trees. Olives, cherries, hazelnuts, you can find some great gleaners' food around, and the law is clear: if it hangs over a fence, it's the public's

@jeffowski What will happen is someone will take all of it, for their own benefit (profit).

@jeffowski

A common can't exist without a political body to manage it.
What happens in such situations if no common culture provides a better way of doing thins, is that people take the fruit before other do, so they take them before they're fully ripened.
Then they take it before someone take a fruit not fully ripened, and in the end people take small and immature fruits.

@jeffowski I grew up in a town in Maine, and there was a part of our neighborhood which was unowned property full of wild blueberry bushes. Anyone could wander out and pick from those if they wished.

There were places around town where you could just pick wild raspberries, too.

...Given that it was such a Republican town, I wonder how thoroughly they've ruined that by now.

@jeffowski At college (UK) in the 70's there was a student from the Seychelles. He was interested in laws and customs around food here compared to his home. Apparently fields there were unfenced and it was acceptable to go in and help yourself to, for example, a pineapple. But only to eat there and then in the field. Taking more than one or taking them away was theft, but feeding a stranger was basic hospitality.

@jeffowski I've been saying for a while now that #OklahomaCity needs to plant fruit-bearing flora in all public spaces that are currently just grass that has to be mowed all the time -- and make it known that people are welcome to forage. It would help so many people in #OKC with food insecurity!