Gleaner

Hello, I brought home some grapefruit that were fragile and had some bad spots. The person who gave them to me called me a gleaner. That must be true as I am quite comfortable cutting off the rotten spots to see if the rest can be salvaged. For instance, half of two grapefruit went to the compost pile and we ate the other halves. They were quite fine. I grew up with the idea that it was ok to cut off the rotten part and eat the rest. We fed food scrapes to the dog or the pigs, but we did not have that many things to give them. Perhaps it is because most of the food we ate, we grew ourselves. The labor of growing makes it more valuable. It is hard to throw away the result of hard work. If we had extra produce, I remember my mother offering it to others. much of that went to the minister and his family. When we butchered, meat was set aside to give to them. We had more things to share than money to share. There have been times when I have gone to a grocery store that marked down items that needed to move out of the store. Many of those bargains appeal to me. Is that another type of gleaning? Could this term be also applied to the fact that I am more comfortable buying clothes on clearance that at full price? We know spring is coming because the Dairy Queen close to our house has opened. Paula