These Apples Are Wild and Free Just Like Me

I found more wild domestic apples. They were conveniently in my back yard. Why have I never seen them before?

I should explain. We live rurally, and the lot our rental home is on is just over two acres. Since we moved in here in 2014, what used to be an old farmer’s field has really shrubbed up. 

Deer, coyotes, and ring-necked pheasants hide back there, so why not a smallish apple tree?

I looked out my window recently and finally noticed the yellow apple tree way down by the forest edge. 

I put on my boots, grabbed a pack, and went down to pick to my heart’s content.

Since then I have been enjoying them daily, and wondering to my amazement,

“Oh little apple tree—what makes your apples taste so sweet and delicious?”

Maybe it is because you are free, choosing to live in the wild, just like me. How you arrived here, I know not, but you are so welcome.

Maybe I love thee because I picked your natural fruit with my own two hands.

Or perhaps because you gave me ten dollars worth of apples for just a bit of effort in the sunshine.

It could be because you not only survived and fruited out during a months-long drought this past summer, but thrived and produced a most tasty and appreciated food for all.

Or, it could be because you are a yellow-skinned variety of Malus domestica, which is rare in my experience.

So many possibilities.

I’m thinking it just might be the waft of sweet apple nose candy that greets me cheerfully every time I go out to the garage to grab a couple from your storage box for breakfast in the morning.

I guess it is a combination of all those things, and one more I almost forgot: You asked nothing of me.

No fertilizer, no pruning, no spraying, no permission.

You just stood there at the edge of the field, year after year, doing your apple thing while the rest of us rushed past with grocery lists and worries.

And when I finally looked up long enough to see you, you were already holding out your branches like you’d been waiting for me to catch on.

So thank you, little wild-yellow apple tree, for the sweetest lesson I’ve tasted for a while:

Sometimes the best things in life aren’t planned. They’re just there, waiting quietly, until we’re slow enough (and lucky enough) to walk far enough into our own backyard to discover them.

I’ll leave the ladder in the garage.

You seem to be doing fine on your own.