Apple, apple!

18 September 2020
Apple, apple! At our old house in the backyard there was a crabapple tree. We never learned to harvest or do anything much with the crooked, odd looking little fruit; however the apples became the source of a favorite job for our young children, especially with the boys. Whenever Dad needed the area cleared – indeed the tree stood in the middle of what we were building up into a Mary garden – he would tell the kids it was time to play “Apple, apple!” It simply meant picking up all the old fruit fallen to the ground, gathering them into buckets or bins or the wheelbarrow, and getting them into our compost. I think the combination of getting to help Dad with an outside job and seeing who could gather the most apples the quickest drove their delight. Occasionally, a local homeless man indulged in gathering some of the fallen fruit – we allowed him freely – and he’d likely known of the tree long before we’d moved into the house. The crabapple was dying when we got there, and eventually had to be cut down to the stump, but we always appreciated the significance of its proximity to our statue of Mary, the New Eve. Across from the crabapple leaned a flowering redbud which, during a storm produced by a hurricane, finally laid itself all the way down to the ground and became our Rosary Tree. Upon that tree many, many children sat - or upon it climbed to sneak a bounce - while we prayed with friends and family in the garden on First Saturdays. Anyway, those trees provide for happy memories.

​Now, we have four apple trees spread about our property and, while the apples are still odd looking, we have discovered they are delicious to eat. Our statue of Our Lady of Fatima now stands before a small fig tree which, with the other larger figs behind the garage has produced a bounty. The big old pear tree has provided no fewer than thousands of pears (don’t fancy I exaggerate!) and so, as intimated before, we are learning how to consume and preserve fruit right out of our yard, with a healthy portion offered to the birds, butterflies, and bees, and plenty fallen with which to play “Apple, apple!” ~ The labor we do outside, picking fruit, mowing the field, cleaning out the coop or shed, clearing sections of overgrowth, hauling fodder for the compost or moving stones to border the garden beds, makes it impossible – particularly when pausing to catch our breath and get a drink of water and take in the beautiful, green, sunny, breezy landscape of our surrounds – not to realize how free we are and how thankful we ought to be. We watch small creatures pay homage to their Maker in their very being. There is nothing else the song of a bird or the loping flutter of a butterfly can be most of the time! Let us remember to join in their song and live in praise and wonder!