Old Apple Trees and Twisted Wisteria Vines

I have always loved apples and applesauce but not as much as my Daddy did. I am sure that his love of them was the reason he learned to graft the apple trees for a better harvest, and created a small orchard on the family farm. According to my Mama some of the apple trees still standing were planted originally in the 1940's. Here is a photo of one gnarly old but thankfully quite persistent tree.

Someone once called an apple tree the "Matriarch" of a farm. If so, she is our aging, stately, arthritic Great grandmother. She is decked out once more in her blossoms and the bees buzz about appreciatively attending her. I was always afraid of the bees but my Daddy said to be thankful for them or there would be no fruit to enjoy. And enjoy them he did!

Old fashioned Apple Stack Cake was one of his favorite desserts. Most folks used dried apples for that old recipe. I don't remember ever drying apples but Daddy sulphured apples. His sulphured apples would stay in huge cloth covered crocks. They remained snow white, soft, and never discolored. It is amazing that a little sulphur smoke could preserve apple slices so beautifully.

 

I love the look of old twisted Wisteria vines. Mama's were beginning to bloom this year after a severe but needed pruning. Before long they will twist and trail down over the lattices once more, casting off their beautiful fragrance. Spring is too short for my way of thinking!

This farm held us all in it's arms. It was the lovely paradise of my childhood. So I will sum up this post with these thoughts...

The old apple tree once more has bloomed,

alive and hanging on with determination.

Her aging limbs stretch upward to the grey-blue heavens, 

a breeze plays at her delicate dressing.

Spring is the season of hope and sweetness,

 the promise of fruit in due season.

Again I am thankful to see her still standing,

 aware that passing time will remove her.

I stand remembering the farm as it was years ago,

 as the sun sinks low into the gap of the mountain.

The golden glow and low casted shadows fall

on this my home-place of peace and contentment.

Spring

Western North Carolina simply burst into an early Spring while I was there recently. This year's explosion of blooming may not have been just for me but I felt it was a literal voice speaking to my heart. I heard many things. One thing it said to me was that while we live we can look outward and upward with hope and joy. But to do that sometimes we have to look past some things right in front of us. Perhaps focusing beyond where we are at the moment helps us get through some difficult things.

The poet, William C. Bryant wrote: The little windflower whose just opened eye is as blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

I want to live like this. I want to focus on what will be a reflection in me that gives hope and happiness. I say this in the middle of feeling such sadness because of the loss of my sister-in-law, but she lived her last days with incredible hope and dignity. She didn't focus on the cancer and modeled such peace to all of us. She was a gardener, and nothing made her happier than to garden. Just days before she passed she happily spoke of expecting the blooming of her pear trees in the back yard. By her front porch steps her lovely Bleeding Hearts spoke appropriately of our feelings at her leaving us far too soon. 

Her home looks up from a lovely fertile valley to the lofty Black Mountains. Just beyond them is the Blue Ridge Parkway. Mount Mitchell was her favorite place to visit. That mountain is as high as you can climb east of the Mississippi. Often the mountain is swathed at it's feet with a blanket of fog and has bright sunny winds at it's summit. If you were down in the valley would you be aware the sun is shining in a place beyond where you were? Now that is a thought! I feel that something of her presence will remain up there. And I won't ever go to visit after this without knowing the memory of her rides those winds.