Found Apples

Tonight I learned of an interesting event. It seems that a organic friend (someone who makes every effort to eat organic food) of ours was at a bit of a bash. The fandango was brought about because a friend of his had run across a large supply of respectable apples all sitting or hanging unused in an old orchard. When the individual asked the owner of the disfunctual orchard if he might sample a few apples, the man replied, "Help yourself to all of them. The have not been sprayed, so the are no good to eat." Thus began the day's squeeze-off by a excited band of herbal curbal organic types.

The found, no-good apple is a beautiful thing in my world, not that I have not eaten plenty of the wax-covered, near flawless, heavily sprayed ones found in our stores, the ones shipped in from New Zealand. The backyard, unmolested apple exists around here in great volume, so much so that with little effort and permission, one can select his preference in untreated apples until he is red with consumption.

It turns out my brother Crow, has a neglected tree he planted many years ago and while it has been mistreated it still insists on putting out apples, that after first frost, are sweet, perfectly firm, the right kiss of sour and last for months. Last night, Ann made a pie of the foundlings that required only decorative sugar and some cinnamon. By noon today the pie had succumbed. As they say in Wisconsin, "There it was, gone." I felt better for it.

Crow's tree is sadly misshapen, almost as if it has been through a code 5 hurricane but still it fights on. Today, with all the leaves gone, Crow and I looked up at the sad tree and decided the apples were too superior to not make a major salvage operation, an operation the put his sorry old duff up in the tree to shake the thing silly and get the apples to fall into the tarp. Without dislodging once form his fifteen foot perch, he shook the apples loose. Tonight they are comfortable in our home and ready for apple sauce with no more debt to brother Crow than one pie of his choosing.

This winter the tree will be trimmed back, the grounds will be cleaned and the neglected tree with the worlds greatest apples will be given a new life. There is just nothing like a found apple, free of any of man's leavings.