The Musings of a Simple Country Man
By Hobie Morris
(Brookfield, NY – Nov. 2013) My beautiful wife Lois sits regally on our old slate patio. She holds in her loving hands several large red beautiful apples. These apples are heart shaped, interestingly light in weight and yet firm, with a rather rough textured skin. When we cut into them the taste is deliciously sweet. Later we’ll make applesauce from several of them, and it too is mouthwatering.
What is unusual about these delicious gems is that this year is the first time in our three decade old memory that the tree has borne fruit.
Our apple mystery began several weeks ago. We were picking yellow apples from a wild apple tree growing near an ancient barn foundation. While standing on a small aluminum stepladder propped in among the fruit laden branches I spotted in a nearby apple tree among the leaves the bright color red. They were in the top of a small unassuming tree that had never borne apples before. Using a homemade apple pick and carefully balancing on a tippy ladder, we discovered to our delight and amazement a half dozen large red heart shaped apples. Lois and I were as excited as kids, as if we had won the lottery. Money, I might add, that we would no doubt have given away to the more needy. We are two simple country people who treasure love, peace and independence before anything material.
For over 30 years my incomparable and indomitable lovely twenty-first century pioneering wife has lived without just about every modern convenience, all basically in one room without electricity or a single closet. We have lived close to and in harmony with nature and the natural world, enjoying its seasonal beauty as well as innumerable challenges. We work hard under pretty primitive circumstances. Like many American Indians what we need and receive from nature we give back in kind. Never exhausting nature’s gifts or our deeply ingrained stewardship of the land, water and its precious flora and fauna.
Every fall we excitedly renew our annual love of apples: finding, picking and processing them. Nature has blessed us here in the hills of Brookfield with an endless variety that we have enjoyed for many years. Annually we can literally hundreds of pints of delectable applesauce, many that we gladly give away in our travels. We use raw sugar called Turbinado and pure spring water. We often combine many different varieties in our sauce. I do all the apple cutting; Lois does the rest on our small Norwegian cook stove.
The apples that we pick will never be found in Price Chopper, Hannaford or Walmart. Their apples are perfect, shiny and generally tasteless. Chemically sprayed many times, waxed for shininess and grown for a long shelf life. Today only a relatively few varieties are commercially grown. Sadly the vast majority of Americans will never have tasted a real apple.
Several generations ago our ancestors were familiar with many of the varieties growing wild in our hills. We try to identify these apples. Recently we checked out from the wonderful Colgate University Library the massive two-volume book Apples of New York State, published in 1903 by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Beginning in 1883 when the Experiment Station in Geneva, New York began, Dr. Emmet Goff and later Dr. Spencer A. Beach compiled, by 1900, 1700 named varieties of apples plus a large number of unnamed apple seedlings. Literally there was an apple at one time for every taste and use. Several years ago the Experiment Station was gracious enough to identify several apples that we had discovered. One of the apples that we sent was a Winter Banana that originated in Cass County, Illinois in 1875 and was commercially introduced in 1890. The other specimen we sent was identified as a Transcendent Crab Apple.
Before returning Beach’s Apples of New York State to the library, I carefully examined the details and colored drawings of some of the most popular varieties in 1900. The closest I could come to the apples Lois is holding is the once popular home orchard variety called the Chenango. An apple first grown in the 1850’s, possibly originating in Lebanon, Madison County or, according to another account, brought into Chenango County from Connecticut by early settlers.
I also identified another of our popular yellow apples. It is called Early Harvest because it is one of our earliest summer apples. It makes fantastic sauce, pies, cobblers, and yes, it’s good eating too. (This summer this tree produced so many we were able to give our wonderful neighbor Kate two or three bushels. Kate annually cans over 90 quarts of peeled apples that she’ll make into delicious pies. Many of them she’ll donate to community causes. She is truly the most loving and lovable Mother Teresa of this rural community.
Beautiful Lois and I feel incredibly blessed to live in this chemical free apple paradise. These two simple country people look forward to the fragrant apple blossoms in the spring and the incredible fruits of these blossoms in the glorious days of fall.
Before long we’ll be picking our winter apples, carefully wrapping each in paper and storing them in bins buried in the ground. In the depth of winter we’ll treat ourselves to fresh apples.
But then again these are only the musings of a simple country man and the special “apple of his eyes,” his wonderful wife Lois.
Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.