Yesterday evening I took some tote bags over to my co-worker/friend’s house. She was feeding the sheep and trying to shoo away the the guard llama (he doesn’t trust her), and as she climbed the fence I petted the dog and the orange cat. I watched the few remaining kittens, gangly and half-grown, spook away into the shadows of the barn.
We took the tractor over to their apple tree, which has an unusually heavy load of fruit this year. The apples are red and gold, a tiny bit tart. They are firm. Some of them have bumps, scars hail left behind. We put a bucket and the bags in the tractor’s bucket, then climbed in. Her husband raised the bucket, which was an intricate process of getting the angle just right, went forward into the tree, and we picked apples. He sat below, while the fat orange cat looked on.
Several people have already picked from the tree, emptying the lower branches. Strangers stop and ask if they can have some. The tree is visible from the road.
We filled the bags, a five gallon bucket, some grocery sacks, and then just dropped apples into the bucket around our feet. I remembered sitting in a scraggly apple tree in a back yard, and I thought about Badly Drawn Boy. As I reached for apples, I reminded myself not to get too confident with my perch. I kept my balance.
When we had no more room, the bucket was lowered and tipped so that we could stay seated. We drove back around to the barn. Walnut and mulberry trees grow in front of the barn, and the migrating monarchs fluttered overhead in the falling darkness. They settled on branches, closed their brilliant wings, disappearing into the surrounding leaves. Seeing them floating, silhouetted against the changing sky, felt good and quiet and charged. The air smelled like moisture and sheep and autumn. I felt calm.
The fat orange cat looked on while we sorted out some apples to give to others, and the mama cat, already quite pregnant again, slunk around suspiciously. We chatted and laughed, and my friend showed me a recipe from a cookbook for applesauce. I am planning on making baggies of applesauce from my apples, with lots of cinnamon and Splenda. They will freeze. The apple tree hasn’t been sprayed in over ten years, and I feel happy knowing that.
I went home, and pulled the apples out of my car. We’d set aside a small bag of apples to eat fresh. Large, perfect ones. I took it across the street and gave some to a few of our neighbors. They were sitting in lawn chairs in front of the garage. One of them will have her 95th birthday this Christmas. We talked about applesauce and monarchs. I crossed back over to our other lady neighbor’s house, knocked on the door, and gave her the rest of the bag of good eaters. She hustled me inside for a few minutes, and asked me about my work, then asked me about Jut. She likes him. Once she came over to ask him if he could tell her why her basement lights were broken, and he trotted right over without bothering to put on shoes first. He helped her fix the problem. Her eyes glow when she talks.
I took the apples inside. Within thirty seconds, I caught Cab licking one of them, because he is weird.
How about a few questions, because it’s been a while, yes? What did you do last night? How do you prefer to eat apples? What’s your favorite type of apple? What was your happiest moment this week?
I answered a few of those above, but my favorite way to eat apples it to cut them into slices, because they seem easier to eat, less messy. I hate when apples are peeled. The peel is my favorite part of the apple. I’ve never really found a type of apple that I love love love, until this summer. The grocery stores have been carrying something called Pink Ladies, and they are pinkish and sweet. I am not a big Granny Smith fan, and something about the shiny skin of Red Delicious apples freaks me out. The Pink Ladies, however, were small and firm and awesome.
I think my happiest moment this week was opening the door last night and bringing in the apples. The light seemed golden from the living room window seemed golden, and Jut left the porch light on for me. I was happy to see the dogs, happy to come home to Jut and the couch, happy the week is almost over. Happy remembering the monarchs, happy that fall is coming.
Love,
black sheeped
