Goodbye to the Old Apple Tree

Janet and Glen planted an apple tree many years ago just in front of the cabins.

In the past few years, I have been trimming back the branches so that Alice could climb among them.

Sometimes she has helped me, scrambling over the boughs, showing me where there a spike on one of the limbs that will scratch her.

I oblige her by smoothing them off with my clippers.

This year there was an abundant harvest of the apples.  

...Dave bucking up the apple tree trunk ...

I have some lined up on the ledge of the cabin, just to eat when I need a snack while working over there. Dave took what we couldn’t eat and is storing them for later in the fall when he makes apple juice.

Now that landscaping work is being done, and that tree has finished its work it will be cut down.

The sadness of its loss is compensated for when I think about the new fruit trees that can be planted. “Apples are a problem in the fall,” says Glen, when I tell him about this, continuing, “on the property, the cherry trees and the apricot and plum trees are well harvested before the summer ends. But the apple trees are laden with fruit in the fall and bear (singular) knows where the apple trees are. Always dangerous to have the bears at your door.”

I think about that and decide that all apples will be harvested earlier rather than later. 

I sometimes forget to have my bear spray with me. And there is no evidence that I will always call “Bear! Bear!” to scare away any bears I might meet or even imagine I might meet when I go out on the porch. 

Have you ever seen a bear on the property?

To that question Greg answers, “Yes, one came lumbering by when Wyona and I were working in the ravine. 

We were glad he wasn’t between us and our escape route to the house.

Arta