Field apple harvest

Last night Little M and I took the truck down to the bottom field and parked under the apple tree that is hidden in the trees and shrubs of the riparian buffer at the edge of the creek. We had already taken the stroller down there and picked what I could reach from the ground, and being without a ladder (it's still up at the rental house), I suddenly realized that by standing in the bed of the truck, or up on the sides of the bed even, that I would be able to reach way more!

After maneuvering the truck to a couple of different locations (including backing it right into the branches of the shrubby understory and barely avoiding a hidden t-post - oops!), we had collected a whole lot of great apples! The backseat was full.

All told we had 2 cloth bags full to the brims (plus what we had gotten last week from ground level!). There is still one branch up there that I couldn't reach, but that can feed the deer or bears. Not a bad haul for a tree that we don't water or maintain at all! I see lots of applesauce in our future - yum!

And we still have 2 apple trees in our orchard with plenty of fruit on them. The majority of those apples though will be going to friends of ours who helped us move a lot of rocks on the rental property, they have a cider press and will be making them into cider.