Pick a Little, Talk a Little

We had a phenomenal apple crop this year.  It was our best ever, yet it was a total bust.

We've got this tree in the front, just beside the road, and this summer we noticed it had one little apple on it.  It's never borne an apple before, so we were quite excited.  Except for these little red berries that were growing on branches that intertwined with the apple tree, there was no other fruit to be found.  And this little apple was beautiful!  But one day, when we had our heads turned, something happened to our solo apple.  Was it one of the neighbor kids -- or some kind of wildlife -- that got our apple, or did the wind knock it off the tree?  I guess we'll never know.

So that made Heather's e-mail especially sweet.  She said, "Martha's got lots of fragrant, delicious apples that you can go pick.  Any takers?"  So Karen and I went to her house on Wednesday to pick.  We had a bucket and two baskets; Martha had the "apple pickers" and the trees.  We'd never used an apple picker before.  It is a long handle with a wire basket with a rake-like set of teeth around part of the the basket to pull the apples from the tree.  You can get several apples at a time, if you're careful.

The apples were firm and delicious, with snowy white flesh.  Great eating apples.  And now I'm singing that song from The Music Man, "Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little..."  I guess that's what friends do when they pick apples together!

Karen and our harvest of Martha's apples

A little art shot