Apple Tree

Things change. It used to be enough to snap a photo and spend hours on identification. Although IDs do still take time (and there are plenty of unidentified species in my photo larder), I more and more appreciate the wonders of nature. To that end, I try to relax into my subject and take some time to get to know it. I've read that is how botanical artists think and work--that they must become quite intimate with their subject. It only seems right, doesn't it?


I drive by this apple tree all the time and it's close on my near daily adventures around the lake. It lost a big branch, probably from last winter's heavy snows. I'm wondering which critters will find the fruit a tasty treat.



From Wild Apples:

Early apples begin to be ripe about the first of August; but I think
that none of them are so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth
more to scent your handkerchief with than any perfume which they
sell in the shops. The fragrance of some fruits is not to be
forgotten, along with that of flowers. Some gnarly apple which I
pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of
Pomona, carrying me forward to those days when they will be collected in
golden and ruddy heaps in the orchards and about the cider-mills.

~ Henry David Thoreau