Ida Reds

I am a city girl. My apples usually come from the local farmers' market, where they wait, piled up in old wooden crates. Braeburn, Rome, Honeycrisp----I love their names. A trip to an apple orchard is a rare treat. Here we were, near the top of a gentle hill, surrounded by row after row of apple trees. These were Ida Reds, destined for pies. Their round redness is exactly what a child envisions when she picks up a crayon to draw an apple. It seemed impossible for a tree to support such an abundance of apples. More than the birdsong, the colors or the cool breeze, I was aware of the...living-thingness of both the apples and the trees all around me.