APPLES, APPLES

Sunday, 9:30 AM.  56 degrees F at the ferry dock, 53 on the back porch.  Wind SW, calm with occasional  gusts.  The sky is mostly clear, the humidity 72%.  The barometer is rising, currently at 29.61".  The week ahead should be dry, with high temperatures in the 50's to mid-60's.  Great weather ahead!
   It is hard to imagine a better apple harvest! Even the wild roadside trees are laden with fruit. We stopped at Hauser’s Orchard yesterday afternoon and they had Wealthy, Macintosh, Dudley, Cortland, and Honey Crisp apples, as well as Kerr crabapples for jelly. The Honey Crisp is sweet and crunchy but my favorite is still the Mac for eating, with Cortland best all-around. 

   It appears the orchards will not sell out with Apple Fest, but will have apples at least through October. I well remember the old apple storage cellars, where one could go all winter and buy fresh local apples. They were half in the ground for insulation, and half above for ventilation. Carefully controlled by opening and closing windows and vents, they would stay at 45 degrees all winter without energy cost, and the keeping apples would remain fresh. Few of those are grown any more. The Spitzenberg was a favorite of mine, hard as a rock until after a hard frost and then lasting until spring in storage.

APPLES

Of the genus Malus

Grow from Kazakhstan to Dallas

Red, pink, yellow, green

and almost every shade between

Eat them, juice them, drink hard cider and get high

But best of all I like them,

in an apple pie

  By Art