Day 256

Our kids love apples. They love applesauce, apple juice, apple cider, apple pie, and delicious varieties of apples in their original, unadulterated form. Visiting  a local apple farm every fall is a cherished family excursion we look forward to every year.

When we bought the farm and had a somewhat clean slate to work with, we thought that adding apple trees would be a great complement to our restoration goals, even if they would not produce right away.

Or at all.

We ended up planting a row of trees down in the area behind our backyard but before the agricultural ditches. The soil in that section of land is pretty wet. While this is useful for some plants, the winter freeze did not treat the roots of our trees too well and they didn't survive their first winter.

Not wanting to give up, we tried again in spring. Understanding a little more about our land, we decided to try a new location. We focused more on the higher, drier land in front of our barn. We found a number of tree varieties for a very friendly price and planted six trees. We watered them, gave them root growth, and kept our eyes on the progress of their growth.

We quickly learned that you get what you pay for. While the trees were low in price, they were even lower in quality as they died pretty quickly despite every attempt to keep them happy and healthy.

We haven’t quite decided if we will give it a go again. We do know that not only do our kids love apples, our chickens do too.

Until we are able to figure out the apple conundrum, we do have an apple dealer. A local friend has a few apple trees on her property. The overabundance of apples works out in our favor. Plus, since we save her lawn mower blades by clearing the yard of fallen apples, it is a symbiotic relationship that benefits everyone, especially the chickens.

Every time they see any of  us walk down to their yard with something in hand, they know treats are coming. This time of year, apples are the treat of choice.