AA or Apple Abundance

When we moved here nine years ago, there were two trees in the yard.   There had been three, but one bit the dust.  One, just outside our bedroom window, was an apple tree.    It produced abundantly on a semi-annual basis.    Usually the apples sat and provided  food for the bees and deer and other critters.

This year to supplement our poor hay harvest, since we are in the drought area, I decided to gather the apples and feed them to the sheep.     I had done this on a sporadic basis in other  years, but never regularly. 

This is today's harvest.   It has been like this for several days now.    They are all windfalls, but the sheep don't mind.  The blue bucket contains some that are big enough to peel and cook up for applesauce.  The apples are not fit for eating, but the sauce is passable.   Since I like chunky, it means peeling, coring, and slicing before cooking, but it is well worth the trouble to have applesauce that I made any time of year.    I just fill plastic jars and put it in the freezer.

This is the tree.    You can tell that it has never had any attention and is terribly overgrown.   But I have a hard time overlooking something that is free and useable.

As you can see in the close up, the apples really should be picked off the tree instead of off the ground.   Maybe we will get that done when my new "toy" arrives.    I "bit the bullet" and ordered an apple peeler.   My number "1" apple peeler person will not be much help this year because of the arthritis in his thumb joints.     Maybe next year..........he hopes to get them fixed this winter.

This is just a brag........    This is the flower on my orchid plant.    I was totally shocked to find it there a couple of weeks ago.    Todd gave it to me, and I couldn't throw it away while it was alive.   As you can see the cats have snacked on parts of it, and I had just about given up hope that it would ever bloom.     It is a spindly ugly plant, but the bloom is awesome.    You just never know!