August, 2009:

The last two weeks of August and the first two of September are, in my opinion, the most interesting time to be at the cottage in Ontario.  The lake is at its warmest, the mosquitoes have gone, the nights are cool enough to actually sleep and hot days are now a welcome surprise.  Best of all, my favourite wild produce is finally ripe enough to eat.

Apples picked from a neighbour's tree

Picking apples in an orchard sounds like fun–I’ve never done it–but not really that much different than visiting a farmers’ market.  The fruit is fresher and you’re outside but where is the challenge?  The varieties are known and more often than not the apples are sprayed with something and grow on dwarf trees that are pruned to make the apples as accessible as possible.  Consider this Sunday afternoon in contrast: I was out walking on an ATV trail that cuts through the middle of a pasture that hasn’t seen a cow in fifty years.  No buildings, power lines, or roads in sight I was surrounded by nothing but grass, wildflowers, and the occasional clump of trees.  Walking on this track–to my chagrin google maps has somehow managed to detect it and marked it as a road–one gets to a point where the view is dominated by a haphazard-looking oak tree surrounded by a clump of smaller trees and assorted bushes.  Every time I walk this track my attention is always diverted by the oak tree’s peculiar shape–it has probably lost a major branch or two on the track-side –for long enough that its neighbours remain unnoticed until I’m almost right on top of them.  At this time of year one of these trees has vibrant spots of red interspersed amongst its coat of green leaves.  An apple tree, of course. (more…)