Apples, Apples, Apples

Most years, it's tomatoes that everyone is trying to get rid of.  This year, it's apples. It's a bumper year for fruit and that means that people without apples are the friends of those with orchards.

It began when Elaine next door was given more apples than she could handle.  She gave me a bag full and I set to work dehydrating and baking.  I had barely worked my way through that fruit when Lavern, a tenor in my choir, called me over to his van in the church parking lot, and asked if I could use some more apples -- and pears as well.

I kept working at the fruit right up to the moment we went camping. It was a relief to be away from it.

On Saturday morning, I was on my way back to Seymour when my cell phone rang.  I pulled over to the side of the road to take the call (I do that). It was Chris to ask if I would join him, Tisha and Evan to pick apples at the Oneida Orchard.

Any time spent with my grandson is time well spent, besides I was under the impression that they were keeping most of the apples.  Evan picked with great enthusiasm. We found honey crisps, red delicious, empires, and macintosh.

When we were done, I found out that I had three big bags of apples.  The honey crisps are set aside for eating, but the empires and red delicious are being dehydrated.  I'm making apple muffins, too, and at least one apple crisp should emerge before I re-join Gary at the campground.

That should be the end of this fruity binge, but my friend Susan is pleading for someone to come out and pick their bumper crop out at the farm.

To make it worse, I have an apple tree myself, a winesap, an apple I've loved since I was a child.  However I've never been able to bring myself to spray that tree so it's wormy.  We've never been able to eat any of them.  We just throw them away.

However, this year, like everyone else, I have a bumper crop.  The apples hang low, almost breaking the branches.

I started picking the apples this afternoon to put them in the landfill and found out that there are so many apples, the worms can't keep up.  So every fifth apple could be used, but I haven't finished with the honey crisps, empires and red delicious yet!  So I bake, dehydrate and crunch and will do so until I leave for the campground on Tuesday.

Tomorrow I visit my friend Norma in Oshkosh.  I wonder how many I can get her to take.