Given the beautiful sky,
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Friday, August 16, 2013
Apple Orchard in the Valley
Today's orchard is a small orchard belonging to a friend, so we get to go and pick apples ourselves every fall if we want. He stopped by the other day to say that the first of his varieties, the Melbas, were ready for picking, so we dropped by on a perfect sunny afternoon to pick just a few for making applesauce.
As you can see, it really was a perfect afternoon. We've been getting lots of these brilliant blue-sky days with puffy white cumulus clouds, as the high pressure weather systems roll through, even though it hasn't been very hot. Perfect weather for me! His tiny orchard is in the narrower upper valley; you can see the west slope of the valley in the background. The cleared fields in the distant centre are the ski runs of the abandoned Talisman Ski Resort.
We quickly found the five Melba trees, easily identified by the apples turning red. He has about 8 varieties of trees that ripen over the next two months, so we may be back later to pick some others. But now was a convenient time to make applesauce, and melbas are good for that, as they don't really keep well for eating over the winter. They're an older variety, and great eating early in the season.
Almost the entire crop in this region was killed off by a late April frost last year, so this year's crop looks bountiful indeed. These trees were heavily laden with lots of excellent apples. They're mostly small trees, and easy to pick, so we half-filled 4 shopping bags and headed home. We now have 24 jars of apple sauce all ready for the pork chops in mid-winter.
I've been in this orchard many times over the years, sometimes with a group of students we brought to the valley, who helped pick occasionally in return for taking their own bags of apples home. But once I was accused of being an apple thief by a local who called the police after he saw my car parked along the road! He didn't realize that I was actually in the orchard with the owner, helping him pick at the time.
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that looks heavenly sent, I almost want to reach out and try to pick one!
ReplyDeleteoh how beautiful!
ReplyDeleteTrue, the weather has been cool but that's fine with me too. How lucky you are to have a friend who shares his apples!
ReplyDeleteOh that is beautiful. I love those blue skies with the puffy white clouds. Perfect. Terrific pictures of the apples!!!
ReplyDeleteSuch beautiful apples! I laughed when I heard you were almost arrested as an apple thief. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe apples looks delicious waiting to be picked. So nice of your friend to share his apples. The skies are beautiful! What a lovely day at the orchard. Have a happy weekend!
ReplyDeleteThe apples look wonderful, and the blue skies are amazing. Are the trees naturally that small or pruned that way? I planted semi-dwarf trees and they all ended up at like 20 feet tall, indistinguishable from a full-size apple. That's the PNW for you. My best early apple, Prince William, one of the Purdue series, is ripening now. My best tree for applesauce is Liberty.
ReplyDeleteThese trees do get pruned as best my friend can, which isn't perfect, but they're quite easy to pick with just a step ladder.
DeleteThanks you all for visiting. I just loved the sky that day, and couldn't resist the pictures.
ReplyDeletePics are really nice!
ReplyDeletedo you mind if I use the one on top?
ReplyDeleteNo, that's fine. How did you ever find it?
ReplyDelete