We’ve had our apple trees for almost 30 years and this year is definitely a different crop! First of all, our one ‘normal’ tree that we usually get apples on did have tons of apples this year, but they were about half the size they should be. To put apples away for the winter, it takes some time and working with such small apples – well that was going to be a lot of work. So we just left them all on the tree and we’ll pick the ones that fell on the ground later this week. I’ve checked on this tree now on and off all summer and fall, so I thought that we wouldn’t put any apples away this year. Just kind of a funny year and check it off to that. Well tonight I was outside in our back yard when I noticed that the other tree apples really looked pretty good. I never bothered with this tree, because in those 30 years we’ve never got apples off of it. As I walked a little closer to it, the apples were really a good size and didn’t look like the apples had worms in them. (I’m kind of weird about chemicals, so we don’t spray our trees). I grabbed an apple and it tasted perfect! I kind of felt bad that I’ve never paid any attention to it, but to my defense.. I did give it 30 years. 
Now there are two good ways to pick apples at our house. The first one is to have William do it 🙂 He usually just climbs the trees and fills up bags. But he’s at school, so we had to go to plan B. This plan is to use Daryl’s tractor and loader,  and since he didn’t bring in his tractor yet to town,  I climbed into the bucket and off we went to pick a couple bags for my Mom.
After we got everything that we could with the bucket, Daryl got the extension ladder out and hooked it on a branch. I thought to myself, I sure hope he’s careful and then he looked at me and said that he’ll hold the ladder and I should be able to reach quite a few. OK. The reasoning is because I was lighter and it wouldn’t put so much strain on the branches. I didn’t care, I was just glad that he was helping, so up the ladder I went. It did stay hooked on the branch while I was up there,  which I was pretty happy about. There are still a lot of apples left on the tree, so later this week we’ll give it another try. 