Apples of My Eye

These are Liberty apples on a tree at the edge of the garden near the house. It's been a reliable little tree and not as prone
to thievery as the apple trees at the bottom of the hill where we can't watch them as closely.

All of our apples trees bear heavy loads this year. We've been planning to share the crop -- wormy as it might be since we've done no spraying -- with family and friends. We planted way too many apple trees while dreaming about selling organic apples at the farmers market.

But growing apples organically in Kansas is tough and selling at farmers market will remain just a dream for us. If we had it to do over again we would plant far fewer fruit trees and more berries.

We've not got way too many apples for ourselves. We figure we'll just let others come and pick for themselves.

Well others are coming to pick our apples... uninvited. And they're not the human kind of thieves.

For the past week or two we've watched the apples on the William's Pride tree grow redder and redder. The usual harvest time for that variety is August, so I wasn't getting too eager to pick them, although from a distance they sure looked ready.

They must have been ready, for on his daily walk yesterday morning my husband noticed that nearly all of the apples on that tree were gone, except for about a dozen that were still half green. During the night squirrels and/or raccoons and/or opossums had an apple picking party.

My visions of baked apple deliciousness were dashed. On the other hand I don't have to figure out what to do with all of those apples. Yesterday evening I went down and picked all of the remaining apples that I could reach from the ground. That should be enough. Even half green they taste pretty good, and they're pretty clean, not terribly wormy.

I'll watch the other trees more closely and when the apples start looking ripe, I'll call in the family and friends for an apple picking party, with human guests this time.