All year I watch the apple trees.
I can see them out the front windows of my house, from the dining room table, from the living room couch, from the screen porch.
They’re not my trees. And they aren’t in my yard. They belong to the Inn across the street, which was once a farmhouse, not an inn. Someone who cared very much for apples lived here before visitors began coming and going. I know someone once cared for them because the orchard is meticulously planted. The trees still bear the shape of careful pruning. Some are espaliered, some have special trunk covers.
And there are so many varieties (perhaps at least 10): small, dark red apples, giant, softball-sized light red apples, green apples, and at least three types of pears! But they are ghosts now; known by name only to the farmer who cared for them but no longer lives in the farmhouse.
The trees are line-drawings all winter. Their branches against the snow promise that winter will end.
I watch the leaves bud out in the spring, then see the blossoms pop.
Warm summer days are loud in the orchard, with birds and cicadas and peepers and crickets. Sometimes an oriole even visits us in our yard, hoping, I’m sure, to find more apple trees here.
But it’s in the fall when the trees are at their best. Even though they are no longer cultivated and cared for, their fruit is heavy. They proudly offer up an answer for fruit-starved New Englanders: fruit for today, fruit that might be better after a frost, and fruit that can be stored for later. I walk, run or drive by and I can almost reach out across the stone wall to grab a snack.
Usually, the apples all thump, untouched, to the ground. They provide food for the never-ending parade of deer, turkeys and occasional moose that find their way to the orchard.
This year, some of the fruit found its way to me.
I finally decided that it was tragic, really, that those trees that someone once cared for and loved, and that I, surely, coaxed into production with my own constant vigil from across the street, should produce for naught.
So I called the Inn. Would it be okay if a neighbor came to pick? I’d be happy to pay something. After all, I’ve watched them all year!
She said I could take what I wanted as long as I saved her some pears. So, for the cost of a bag of pears picked for the innkeeper, my husband and I lugged three huge canvas bags of apples and pears home.
We stored the apples in a cooler in a cool, dark hallway while slowly working our way through them.
The pears ripened in a paper bag and were eaten out of hand for lunches, except the ones that joined apples in an warm, cinnamony autumn crisp.
Some apples became apple-jalapeno jelly; a jar of which, along with cream cheese and crackers, I walked back across the street for the innkeeper.
Some became things like this:
The rest were peeled, sliced, coated with sugar, lemon and cinnamon, and packed away in the freezer for pies and crisps all winter.
The orchard across the street is still no longer cultivated, no longer pruned.
But it is cared for.
Beautiful post. My husband just did a project with his school’s environmental club, where they picked apples, learned to make and can applesauce and donated the sauce to the food pantry. It seems like such a waste for so many once-loved apple trees to bear fruit that could be eaten. We may have to collaborate with you on a M’boro project some day!
Sounds like the apple trees in my neighborhood…though I am sad at the thought that the land we live on was once an apple orchard, and now contains only a few trees. One question…I noticed the spots on the ones you picked…my assumption has always been that the spots indicate disease (usually coming from no one spraying the trees as you said in your case)…it seems then the apples are still safe for eating? I only ask bc growing up we had 10 trees, none were sprayed, so the apples were spotted and we ate them all the time, my neighbor disagrees and thinks they should not be eaten with the spots…
Thanks! enjoy the apples, Kristin
brava to you for calling the inn keeper!
and apple-jalepeno jelly? you must share that recipe (or at least the source)
Jen – I’m tempted to find out if I could work out a deal whereby I manage the orchard for a You-Pick (I think it once was open for picking). Schools would be the perfect partner – teach kids about orchard management, maybe get some help with the work!
Kristin – We peeled all of the apples and cut out any dark spots that were deeper than the peel (not many, actually). Not one worm or bug was found! I’m not sure, exactly, what makes the spots – bugs? disease? mold? Whatever it was, it seems to have been only skin deep, as no one has been hurt! I did use the skin and cores for the jelly, but I cut out any yucky parts, and washed them all really well.
Sara – Here’s the recipe I used for the jelly. To tell you the truth, I was trying to copy some Stonewall Kitchen Apple Jalapeno Jelly I had tried! I think it worked out well. I didn’t use the cranberries. (http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/002089jalapeno_pepper_jelly.php)