How 'Bout Them Apples

On one recent afternoon, I was sitting in my kitchen puttering away on a nearly-finished manuscript.  Progress was being made, but the pleasant distraction of working by a big bay window looking out to the street can limit how much gets done.

I notice every passerby, as my peripheral vision catches every neighbor out walking their dogs, every salesperson wandering door to door.

What caught my eye that afternoon was a mother and daughter as they slowed down at the edge of my yard to notice one of my two apple trees.  

The taller, deep green Honeycrisp nearer to the house has yielded, in the past five years, exactly one perfect apple.  It doesn't flower much, and never quite seemed to recover from the trauma of having most of its branches torn off as a sapling.  That damage was done by a young buck deer scraping the velvet from new antlers, and I wasn't sure it would survive.  What few flowers it produces now are out of sequence with the other tree, and are the farthest thing from fruitful.  This year, it produced one withered apple, a sad little object no larger than the tip of a thumb.  

But then there's the dwarf Fuji I planted nearer to the sidewalk to crosspollinate with the Honeycrisp.  It's not as heavily leafed, and stumpier, but is nonetheless going like gangbusters year after year.  Even after I pruned away full third of the new apples back in the spring, the branches droop heavy with growing fruit.

It was the Fuji that the daughter noticed, and she excitedly pointed it out to her mother.  They stopped, and considered the tree.  The girl asked an question, and her mother answered her.  "Yes, that's an apple tree," I could see her say.  A huge smile spread across the girl's face, as her eyes danced across dozens of apples.  The sparkle in her eyes translated into excited little jumps, as she pointed and counted the apples with such energy that her little body needed to leap a bit.

It is possible, I realized, that she might not have seen an apple tree before.  There aren't any others in our neighborhood, not visibly in a front yard, at least.  Or perhaps she'd gone apple picking, but never ever seen an apple tree while simply out walking. 

Years ago, before those apple trees were planted, before I'd even begun my first tentative attempts at gardening, I'd often wonder at how it is that America's suburban neighborhoods are so devoid of fruit and harvest.  

Now, it's not just the sweetness of those apples that I enjoy, but the pleasure that others take in their existence.