How 'bout them Apples?

Almost everywhere we have lived we have had apple trees in our yard. I'm not sure why. I guess we like apples, or at least houses with apple trees. We had three apple trees in Pleasant Grove, ten apple trees in El Paso, (none in Alaska), and we have two trees in our Idaho Falls yard--a Golden Delicious and a Gala (I think).

The weatherman was predicting below freezing weather over the weekend so we decided it was time to harvest our apples. We invited our neighbors over to take as many apples as they wanted and they picked about two bushels. Saturday morning Nancy went to work on the Golden Delicious tree, which looked more like green delicious and was heavily loaded with fruit. By the time I got home to help she was about done. I climbed up the tree and picked the fruit on the highest branches. The cold and snow added a nice fall feeling to the day.

After we finished the first tree I went to work on the Gala tree. It has some kind of fungus problem and didn't produce near as many apples as the other tree. The trees were badly overgrown when we bought the house and I did a two-year pruning project to bring them back under control. We only got about one bushel from the Gala tree but the other tree more than made up for the shortage.

So, for the past week Nancy has been busy canning apples. She has forty quarts of apple pie filling, a dozen jars of apple jam, and is now working on applesauce. We are only half way though our crop of apples. She ran out of canning jars and can't find any more for sale anywhere in town. She just worked trade with a neighbor for two-dozen quart jars in trade for a bag of apples.

We still have plenty of apples, so if you want to come over and get some you are more than welcome. Just bring your own jars.