Apple Trees and Apple Sauce

 To all of my fellow bloggers:  This month I am participating in the annual A to Z blogger challenge by sharing a few of my childhood memories.  Learn more about the challenge and Sign up right here:
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-z-challenge-sign-up-list-2016.html , then go out and visit some of these excellent blogs!  Right now my number on the list  is # 1007 for Creation and Compassion and # 1008 for Random Thoughts and Tender Mercies. (The number may change as people drop out)

 If it were a perfect world and I had all of the time in the world, I would have somehow found a photo of the apple tree that grew in the garden on my Dad's farm where I grew up.   I visit my Dad and the farm almost every weekend now, but unfortunately the apple tree is no longer there, and I haven't yet found a photo of it to post.  So, if any of you out there have a photo of the tree, please pass it along?!?

There are many trees on the family farm, mostly big black willow trees that were planted by my father and grandfather shortly after the farm was purchased by my grandfather back in the 1930's, but when I was growing up, there were also a few fruit trees; one apple tree in my grandfather's garden and one apple tree in our family's garden.  (We lived next door to my grandparents, with the barn and the gardens between the two houses.)   There was also a plum tree by our garage, but that tree is not the object of this blog post.

Our apple tree was, I believe, a Winesap apple tree that my father bought from his cousin's nursery long before I can remember, because in my memories it was always there.   We were allowed to climb in and play in the willow trees as much as we liked, but it was pretty well established that the fruit trees were not for climbing.   Oh, of course if we were hungry and needed to sample an apple, we could probably get away with climbing up and picking just the right one (though we were discouraged from doing so before they were ripe), but apple trees were not for playing in.

Every fall we had a fairly bountiful harvest of delicious, tart-sweet apples.   Some were for eating, but most were taken up to the old church owned cannery in town and made into delicious applesauce that was canned and brought home to our cellar.  All winter long we enjoyed that applesauce in a variety of ways;  with graham crackers and milk, in cookies or cakes, on top of pancakes, or my personal favorite, on a slice my mother's fresh home made bread with peanut butter. Granted, this was a bit of a messy after school or after dinner snack, but one of my favorites.  In fact, a peanut butter and applesauce sandwich sounds pretty darn good right now.   Care to join me?