In May 2011, after four years of life on McNutt's Island, we moved to Montreal. This blog remains, though, as a (sort of) daily record of our time on the island, and a winding path for anyone who would like to meander about among its magical places. For additional perspectives and insights I recommend Greg's book, Island Year: Finding Nova Scotia (2010), and my Bowl of Light (2012). I'll continue to post once in a while. If you do want to read this blog, one option would be to begin at the beginning of it (which is, as we all know, in blog-world, at the end), and read forward, concluding with the most recent entry. It's a journal, really, so it does makes more sense if you read it that way. But, you know, read it any way you like.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Old apples

The old apples were planted here between seventy five and hundred and fifty years ago. Some of them may be wild, but most of the trees look like they were grown from grafts, and most are planted in patterns. We haven't identified many, but we have an idea about general types.

We have Gravenstein, Alexander, and several kinds of Greening apples. Maybe we have a Dudley Winter or North Star, a Newtown Pippin, and an Ashmead's Kernel. Almost certainly we have a Golden Russet and a Maiden's Blush. And maybe -- just maybe -- we have a Cox's Orange Pippin, though it may be wishful thinking.

Lacking their real names, we make up names for them anyway: Fish House, Short Cut, Three Sisters.

If I pay enough attention to these apples -- their shapes and sizes, their stems, their lenticels, their streaks, their russetting and all the other wonderful aspects of apples that I never knew a thing about before last fall, I will come to know them over the years, even if I don't learn their names.


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