Trees of Antiquity

The apple trees by the office aren’t pretty anymore. They are bent as if by arthritis, with dead branches way out of the reach of pruning saws.  But I know their names and remember when my mom and dad bought these two Ozark Gold trees for us after we moved to this farm. We planted these, a dozen or so Golden Delicious, an Empire, an Earliblaze, a couple of Galas and one Blushing Golden.  These were varieties my folks were familiar and successful with at their mid Missouri orchard. 

 And so, in August when we begin to hear the thud of apples falling outside the office window, we know it’s time to pick one of those yellow green fruits and take a bite to see if it's ripe.  An Ozark Gold is not a super sweet fruit like the popular Honeycrisp or Gala or Pink Lady. But it’s not sour either like the old time Lodis, good for sauce and nothing else. We used to get a box of those green mammoths from my folks’ tree and believe me, measure for measure, it took as much sugar as apple! An Ozark Gold is tangy, and juicy, and pretty darn crisp for an August apple. It makes a dandy pie but still cooks up into a lovely golden sauce with just the right amount of texture to savor.  As we grow them, they aren’t lovely; many have some cosmetic spots that peel off easily, but there is enough clean fruit to keep a bowl in the fridge for munching. This week we froze a half dozen pies or so, ate a big apple crisp with ice cream, peeled and chopped enough for a round of apple breads for everyone and still have four loaves stashed in the freezer for harvest lunches. 

Millie came up one afternoon to “help apple”.  When she suggested we pull out the apple peeler, an ingenious tool for sure, I told her our apple were more dimpled darlings than carbon copies, thanks to some early season hail.  They needed the hands on treatment. I needn’t have worried. Millie’s been peeling fruits and veggies for longer than...well, let’s just leave it at “longer than. Armed with a couple of knives and one of many peelers, the bucket of odd shaped Ozark Golds were soon tucked into pies while Gma Millie took a tasty streusel topped dessert home for Grandpa’s supper…Years ago, Millie was the one hidden by a cloud of flour while she rolled out crusts for freezer pies, while I, a disciple of comparative advantage, stood at the sink up to my elbows in apple peels.  Days spent canning or freezing produce are good days and fondly recollected even after the jars are empty.

Speaking of jars…we grab our canner full of empties from the basement shelves, hoping to avoid the ones with dead spiders and crickets inside.  They are scrubbed and then examined for chips or rough edges. It’s kind of a treasure hunt and history lesson rolled up in one to guess the vintage and origin of each jar.  The Kerr jars are the easiest since I know the date is stamped on the screw top. I handle them tenderly, picturing my grandmother carrying these jars from 1964 down to her basement full of peaches or applesauce from my grandfather’s orchard.

One of these jars is from 1976.  It doesn’t have the Liberty Bell on it like some Bicentennial jars, but it could have come over from my mom’s cache, a jar of pickles or beans from Millie’s canner, or even a hand-me-down from my mom’s long time friend Carol Findling.  

And finally, I wash out a jar dated 1986.  That one has some age on it too, but I know it’s mine and has been up and down the basement stairs who knows how many times.  Canning is a tribute to our past, a ritual handed down like these jars, a trip down memory lane captured in something as ephemeral and as lasting as glass.  

It’s ironic that some of these canning jars are going to outlast those two Ozark Gold trees out back. I looked up the variety online, but it seems Stark Bros. no longer grows it for sale.  I seem to recall my dad saying something about the root stock, but perhaps its decline has more to do with the customers' desire for super sweet apples. And even though it has fantastic keeping qualities for an ‘early’ apple, it is not an apple for storage.  Still, an Ozark Gold can be used in so many ways….and carries with it so many memories, that I am determined to find some baby Ozark Golds to replace our oldsters.  

And I have.  A nursery called ‘Trees of Antiquity’ is still growing Ozark Golds for sale.  And while I don’t think a tree introduced in 1970 quite qualifies as ‘antique’,  I guess I could be wrong! In the tradition of the people who gave us the first trees, and the ones who passed down the canning jars, I’m going to order a couple more Ozark Golds to ensure our grandkids will continue to pick russeted yellow apples for eating, for pies, and for the first fresh loaves of their grandmother’s apple bread…..

Janus

When summer opens, I see how fast it matures, and fear it will be short; but after the heats of July and August, I am reconciled, like one who has had his swing, to the cool of autumn.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every year, August lashes out in volcanic fury, rising with the din of morning traffic, its great metallic wings smashing against the ground, heating the air with ever-increasing intensity.

Henry Rollins

"All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world."
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Where do you come down on August?  Thumbs up or thumbs down? Does turning the page fill you with foreboding? Or regret?  Do the days of August flutter away into the haze as the Monarch butterflies migrate?  Or do you feel trapped, cramped, imprisoned by heat, humidity, insects, or regret for the promises of summertime unfulfilled? Is Nature's bounty a cornucopia of tasty treats to be savored fresh today and preserved for the cold days tomorrow?  Or do you avert your eyes from the jungle of foxtail, bindweed,  grasshoppers and assorted crawly beasties that used to be characterized as a garden? Do you anticipate the broadcast of your favorite baseball team...or have pre-season football rankings captured your allegiance?

Like Janus, August is two faced, a time of beginnings and transitions, of doors and gateways,of change. August has one foot in the door of summer and one on the steps of fall. 

A quick trip through Augusts past confirms these dual personalities:

August is a month of fairs....4H and FFA, hogs and sweat, mud and sand and ribbons.

Following the fairs..and the conclusion of projects four-legged and not, August is a time for vacations, for seeing America, for keeping cool, for catching up with friends and family far away, for one last hurrah before school bells ring.

It is the month of farewells...as sons and daughters go back to college...or leave home for the first time.

August is a month of storms.  When we first came back to farm, we'd watch the weather map anxiously, waiting  for a Gulf Coast hurricane to come up from the south, break the July drought, and give our soybeans a good soaking.  More recently, August has blown in violently with destructive winds  flattening the ripening corn and turning the mum patch into a tedious game of 5000 pot pickup. August giveth and August taketh away. August can be synonymous with catastrophe.

But August can be a time to gather as well.  To dig and dry the onions when the ground softens.  To take advantage of all the ways that tomatoes can be canned. To choose the magic moment for picking grapes for jam that glows in a jar like the visual essence of summer. For eating apples off the tree while we water, grabbing a half dozen to bake the first new crop apple loaves, setting aside a half bushel in the 60 year old frosty refrigerator to use til the winter apples come in.

 August is a month of cakes and celebrations.  If  we all lived closer together, we would barely finish one round of desserts before we would blow out the candles on another one with three birthdays in ten days. Levi's birthday starts the birthday fortnight, a continuing feast of thanks for  him, for Ben on the 15th and for Matt on the 20th.  August: a month of new lives and new beginnings in our family.

If you are country people like we are, August brings  a new school year.  The kids have gotten their letters in the mail assigning them to their new classes in their new grade. The school supplies await in plastic bags and almost everyone needs new tennis shoes and jeans.  Aaron and Matt start EA football practice and Lee will drive Gabe over to Burlington Junction to learn the ropes of flag football.  Abbie and Lizzie sign up for the fall's dance classes with Miss Annie.  Josh will start back to Honeytree.  No more kids' laughter at the pool, no more wet towels and swimsuits for the puppies to chew through at the farm. Summer may not end with the advent of school, but the swimming season does.

And, finally, way at the end of August,  we raise our glass for one more celebration.  Some years we mark it; some years it gets no more than a passing mention.  But years ago, when we believed we were grownups, Blake and I wed, and somehow, through all the years, we have held tightly to that partnership, that bond, as we raised our children, struggled with our business, enjoyed the ups and endured the downs of both, and gloried in the happiness and blessings we did not earn.  August may show us its happy face or its scowl from one year to the next, but on the 27th, we breathe a sigh of relief and say, Thanks! Made it another year!

Bring on September!