Saturday, September 22, 2007

Feral Apples

Picking feral apples.The equinox is for apples. First M. and walk the small ravine that cuts through our land--that is where the feral apple trees grow.

I think of them as growing from apple cores tossed from someone's pickup window 50 years ago, but really I have no idea.

As Sally the witch says of the magicians' orchard in Robert Graves' Watch the North Wind Rise, these trees have been left in peace.

Only one of the feral trees has borne really well, and I will need a longer pole than my garden cultivator to knock down the high apples. "Wait until after the first frost," M. suggests.

And then we cross the road to a neighbor's house where two planted trees are sagging dangerously with apples. Why haven't the bears arrived? Maybe they will tonight. We fill our bucket in just a few minutes. Apples apples applesapplesapples.

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Laura said...

Those apples look so good!! Have a wonderful holiday.

10:19 AM  
Blogger Peg said...

Feral apples! I love it.

You should get out ot Brushwood some day, plenty of feral apples there too!

We went picking at the local orchard; so many people! They had to close the U-pick section but people forged on anyway. We got a nice big bag of Empires. But no way were we standing in a line 100 people long for cider donuts!

7:37 PM  
Anonymous Chas S. Clifton said...

Cider donuts? Meaning donuts dipped in cider??

Cider is best saved and mixed with whiskey at Samhain.

M. found another tree up the ravine on a neighbor's property, one that we had forgotten about. It bore apples this year, but we are leaving those for the bears (or deer), since it is closest to the forest.

8:30 PM  
Blogger Peg said...

MMMM, donust dipped in cider!

No, cider donuts are donuts made with cider in the batter. They are a Northeast thing. Delicious. Indian Laddres (where we went yesterday) has them practically year round, but for some reason huge crowds of people show up to get them in the fall (same scenarios at Brooksby Farms on Peabody, MA, another lovely orchard), hence the ridiculous crowds and lines. Of course, the greater demand means they are likely to be hot from the fryer and very fresh. Yum.

6:41 AM  
Blogger mdmnm said...

Michael Pollan's "Botany of Desire" was a real education about apples for me. I knew they had to be grafted to give a certain variety, but never realized that each seed would create a different tree bearing different fruit. How very cool that you all not only have access to some ferals, but edible ones at that!

8:39 AM  
Anonymous Chas S. Clifton said...

I am a big fan of Michael Pollan's too, starting with a piece on opium poppies that he wrote for Harper'sh some years ago.

9:25 AM  

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