Forever Young

She's a beauty again.  How many years since she looked vibrant, I have no idea.  It has taken over a year of focused shaping and pruning by my Yard Wizard to bring her back to glory.  Dame Apple is young again.

In the beginning--February 2012--covered with Ivy
and not yet in leaf.  Is there really an apple tree in that mound?

For the thirty-five years we've lived next to her, the apple tree has always look like a mound of green garbage.

Ivy and Nightshade removed.

A grant from the city to restore native plants started the clean-up process.  That's when Yard Wizard took on the challenge.

Happily shaped and blooming last spring

She responded well to every step of the rejuvenation.

Perhaps someday the Things I get to do today will include finding out what kind of apple tree she really is.

New plantings of native trees surrounding her at the base, Dame Apple glows with new life.

Yellow Transparents

It was the call I was waiting for.  Several blocks from our house stands a lovely, old, farm-style house.  In the yard an ancient Yellow Transparent Apple tree spreads it twisted branches.  I cruise local neighborhoods looking for that kind of tree.  "May I buy some of your apples?" is the line I use.  Most folks go from blank to grateful at the prospect of unloading worthless apples that become wasp attractors within a few days of falling off the tree.  The apples announce their ripeness by dropping to the ground.  Brooke was phoning to say the apples were ripe.  Come get them off the ground.  Today.  Please!

Enough Yellow Transparents to make more than a gallon of sauce

I've loved these apples all my life, not for eating from the tree, but for the delicious sauce they make, thick, tart and smooth as velvet.  My grandmother had an old tree that yielded dozens of quarts of sauce every summer.  They are ready to cook up right after the raspberries are finished.

Victorio Strainer:  a sauce makers dream
Cooked fruit goes in the top
Peelings come out the spout on the left
Sauce pours into the dish

A brief search told me that the tree is from very old Russian stalk, is exceptionally cold hardy, and tends to take every other year off to rest.  Someone's blog said they were worthless and in their area were called "throwing apples" since those folks believed the only thing they were good for was throwing at dogs and cats (that tells you more than you want to know about the whole mentality of the area).

Finished sauce, hot and ready for sugar

In our family, these apples are gold.  We love this sauce more than any other fruit sauce, so after gathering the apples at Brooke's, the next of the Things I get to do today is assemble my Victorio Strainer and make The Best apple sauce in the world.

Fine Threads

Details on Dame Apple

Dressmaking still interests me.  I could spend hours as part of the Things I get to do today looking at fine fabrics, detail work in pockets and plackets, and perusing new patterns for garments.

It's a modest show this year after all the pruning and shaping

So since Dame Apple did her thing a week ago with the blossom, buttons and bows,  I've been all over it.

A luscious branch next to the path

It seems that the finest people-garment is nothing compared to the perfection of this ancient tree, her ability to grow leaves and to make the most delicate and robust blossoms all at the same time.

No queen's wardrobe could be better

Now that her dress has come to maturity, fully flowered for this season, those of us who've watched the process and the end result are wildly blessed.  Thank you, Your Highness.

Francies for Her Dress

Button blossoms

Dame Apple is putting on the bling. She is now spring-young enough to make her dress be covered with shades of pink and white:  pretty buttons and bows tied carefully to the tips of each branch and branchlet. Deep at heart, she must be a 7-year-old designing her finest Easter dress.

La Belle Dame 

Somewhere on the list of Things I get to do today I wish I could for a moment be Dame Apple, exploding with excessive good taste into a show-stopping garment, elegant beyond human words.

Dame Apple's Spring Dress

Nature's schedule is her own.  You can't rush it.  Digging up seeds you planted yesterday to see how they are doing does not encourage them to sprout and grow faster just because you are impatient. So I've done my best for many days now, as part of the Things I get to do today, to allow The Grand Dame Apple Tree of our ditch-becoming-Fanno Creek plenty of time to swell her buds, squeeze out the tips of new leaves, and to pretty her new dress with blossoms.  Silly me.  My doings have nothing to do with Dame Apple's dress.

Looks like 3 or 4 blossoms are tucked away in this clutch of new leaves
Little pretties for another day.

Today, however, she caught me eye.  A slight fatness at the end of each of the branches seemed more green than usual.  I brazenly walked right up to her and took a good squint.  Sure enough, the basic structure of her dress is nearly ready.  The fancies will come along in their own good time.

Even Steven

The question caught me way off guard.  "Do you need someone to take away the wood?"  A helpful concern brought it forth.  Why did I feel funny inside when I heard it?

From "Coaxing Back Her Youth," you know I've been hanging out in the ditch with Dame Apple (tree) off and on for about 10 days, and not just holding her hand.  Tyler, friend and landscape/arborist, did the big tree-and-chainsaw work.  His skill and talent were not required for the clean up.  I could do that.  Clamoring up and down the steep, slick-as-slime, muddy bank, and hefting chucks of wood have filled in for my weight training and were the Things I get to do today for a couple of days as "tidiness and order" were restored to the work area.

Once-a-week pick up of yard debris 

So when the question came about the wood, for some reason I thought of "The Little Red Hen":  the heavy work is done.  Do I need help eating the bread (taking away the wood)?  Further reflection revealed that where help was truly needed was in removing the brush pile!  And a trade could be arranged. What a good idea!   Bring your yard debris bin, fill it with twigs and small branches, and help yourself to an armload of wood.  Even Steven.

Stuffed with apple twigs and branchlets

Many cans worth still waiting to be stuffed

Coaxing Back Her Youth--part 2

In the beginning(yesterday)--just for a point of reference

Tyler came early today: 9:30 AM.  Tyler is the plant wizard who designed my back yard exquisitely when he was only 17 or 18 and now loves the plants into their finest shape.  I swear he is half monkey and has tree sap flowing through his veins instead of blood.  He is also the "arborist" of yesterday's post.*

At the end of yesterday's work--form emerging

He was eager to continue the make-over process and went right to work. He admitted some uncertainty about what the final results would be, but there is always a conversation between the plant and Tyler that blends into the highest and best outcome.  I'm confident of that and head off to other Things I get to do today.

Unveiling of an heirloom treasure.

Upon my return I nearly sprinted to the work area and sucked in my breath with the sight.  There she was, not finished yet, still some hag bones interrupting the vision, but she was coming, with remarkable strength for such an old lady, into a very handsome presence.  (To be continued).


*Tyler Doggett: email me through the "comments" on this post for his contact information and rates.