Weakley_FarmLife.htm

FAMILY FARM Life - Weakley County Tennessee

Pictoral History of the Family Farm
by MaryCarol

Pickin' Apples from Gnarly Old Trees
by Jeannie A. Travis

Have any of you had the great good fortune to wander through an old abandoned orchard, and sample the wonderfully flavorful old apples ? Remember biting off chunks of indescribably delicious fruit while avoiding worm holes and knots ? When my son Richard was a young'en hubby used to work and play music too, so we were on our own a lot....and roamed the country side having SUCH a great time ! There was an old orchard nearby that had been planted before my time, probably, and the old man that owned it passed away and it was sold to a neighbor....Having an orchard of his own, he just sort of let the gnarly old trees take care of themselves without benefit of spraying or pruning till he could get to it. For a dollar or two you could pick up a bushel of apples of all kinds. We would wander from tree to tree, looking and tasting, One little apple was so dark red it looked black, but when you bit into it the flesh was crisp and snow white but with a strain of red running through it. I always thought it might be the heirloom apple, Sops of wine

As we wandered about, not even trying to fill our baskets, names of the old apples would run through my mind....Limber twig, Cox's orange pippin, Sptizenburg (Jeffersons favorite, I heard) Horse apple, Winesap. Strawberry, Lady's apple, and so on.... Seems like one was called 'Water core" by my Mother in law.

Son and I always meandered towards the back of the orchard to the gnarly old pear tree we knew about from former forays in the orchard . We would scuff about in the fallen leaves till we found some sound pears to add to our baskets, and we'd eat one as we walked around the little cattail choked pond where the red winged blackbirds nested. They scolded till we walked away, smiling at their bravery. Not nesting at that time of the year, but still territorially minded.

After we piddled around till we got tired we would gather our apples from the various little buckets we'd stashed throughout the orchard and drive down the road to pay for them. If the folks were squeezing' cider we would buy a jug or two to take home with us...Nothing in those jugs but freshly squeezed apple juice made from a duke's mixture of that unsprayed fruit. Still tasted good even after all those apples we had sampled !

As we rode home, hands and face sticky, clothes full of beggar lice and other hitchhiking weed seed we'd talk about our elderly friends we'd
visit with the next day that were unable to ramble about in old orchards, and how we would share with them some of our 'mystery' apples and the grand time we had picking them.

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