In August I wrote a post about too many apples, Yellow Transparents at that time, and speculated that I might have a repeat performance in September, because my other apple tree was ripening a big crop as well. So it happened — buckets of apples, many of them a nice yellow colour with red cheeks. All through September I admired them from my kitchen window, until I finally persuaded myself to climb onto the garage roof and pick some.

I had no idea what variety of apple this was. The tree has been here longer than I have, likely planted by whoever built the house next door to mine, back in 1913. Subdivision happened at some point before my house was built in 1931, so now one of those trees, or an offspring, grows on my lot, rather too close to the back of the garage. The tree is rarely pruned and never sprayed, but this year conditions must have been especially amenable to apple production, because it produced abundantly.

Coincidentally, our local CBC Radio station decided on an apple theme for its Oct. 1st open house celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Apple pie was available, there were people from the LifeCycles Fruit Tree Project there, and folks from the BC Fruit Testers Association, who could identify mystery backyard apple varieties. I turned up with a bag of the better specimens from my tree as an offering for LifeCycles. They were duly identified by the experts as an old variety called Maiden Blush.

It was fun to meet and see in person radio personalities familiar only as voices, and to mingle with fellow CBC listeners. And when I went home, I spent part of the afternoon baking a couple of apple pies.