I grew up not knowing that there were “good apple years” and “no apple years.” But there always was a red delicious apple in my paper lunch bag. So ubiquitous, it was no more special than the brown paper it came in. I hated red delicious apples. They tasted like chalky, overly sweet potatoes to me. I traded mine or threw them away without a thought. Some anonymous tree, in some anonymous land, picked by some anonymous person who took that apple and waxed it and polished it so it was as perfect as the plastic fruit on my auntie’s dining room table. These apples, the ones all around me, are not those apples.

These trees I have come to understand. In front of our house, the most magnificent of all. An apple tree so full and robust and heavy with apples that she encircles more than half of our screened-in porch. She is the one who scratches along the metal gables of our bedroom on windy nights. She is the one who grows apples, striped light green and pale red, that grow in clusters like grapes. Tens of thousands of apples, and she holds them all. Her trunk is as mighty as an oak’s. Her limbs stretch far and hold strong.

Each apple tree in our orchard has its own character.