Enough Apples for Pie

Well, despite their tenderness of age and small size, our apple trees actually produced apples this year.  It's amazing how resilient trees and plants can be.  It was such a strange year...warm spring...then a real cold snap...then our very hot, dry summer.  This is not to mention the pests like caterpillers and ants that were a constant problem.  It's amazing we had any apples at all, but this year we actually had enough for one apple pie.  Last year I think we had only a few apples.  They were quite tart and looked sort of strange, but they made up wonderfully in a pie.  We had lost one tree over the last winter due to wind, and another looks poorly after a storm recently.  We're thankful for the healthy trees we DO have though and will always remember the dear people who gave them to us.  I put extra brown sugar in (the secret to a great apple pie instead of using white sugar) due to their tartness, and the pie was quite yummy.  Hooray for apples!