They Weren't Always Picking Crabapples On This Land

Crabby About Apples

With darned good reason!

By Alma Barkman

Every Fall in my part of Winnipeg, Manitoba, people peddle—by which I mean, try to give away—surplus crabapples. Judging by the zeal with which the bulging bags are foisted upon the unsuspecting, you would think they are zucchini that grow on trees!

At an early point in history, I suspect our well-meaning forefathers each planted an apple tree or two as a precaution against starvation. When those same forefathers got a taste of our long Canadian Winters, they planted entire orchards!

Back then the trees may have produced big, juicy apples. Alas, that was long ago. The apple trees regressed, cursing future generations with miserable, sour mutants know as crabapples.

The worst of it is that the trees have very long lives. They can withstand cold and heat and drought and disease—even lightning and rabbits—better than any other trees I have ever known.

No matter what, every Fall they produce an exasperating amount of crabapples.

As with every other tree, the most fruit seems to always be at the top of the tree. This has given countless small children an extra chore: shinny up the apple tree and shake down the harvest.

Many years ago, I was the youngest and most agile in our family, so everyone expected me to climb our big old crabapple tree and pick the fruit nobody else could reach. I wasn’t too fond of heights, but at least when I was clinging to a thin little branch already heavily laden with fruit, I could hear bits of encouragement filtering up through the leaves.

“One thing about kids. They don’t mind falling.”

“And if they do, their bones heal real fast.”

The year I was about 8, I had an idea. I asked Dad if he would load an empty gasoline barrel into the two-wheel trailer and haul it down to the orchard with the tractor. If he would just park it under the apple tree, I could then climb into the trailer, scramble up onto the gasoline barrel, and pick crabapples in comfort.

I was not finished picking when Dad decided he needed the tractor. So he unhooked the trailer, propped the hitch on a block of wood, and drove away, forgetting to close the orchard gate.

In no time at all, I was surrounded by our young and delighted herd of hogs. That wasn’t too bad, really—as long as they rooted around on the ground and I stayed up on the gasoline barrel. But then one fine fat hog decided to scratch himself on the trailer hitch. He rubbed so vigorously he knocked the hitch off the block of wood—and down came Alma, barrel and all.

The next thing I knew I was on the ground, surrounded by 15 hogs, all crunching my crabapples and poking me with curious wet snouts, apple juice dribbling down their jowls.

I hobbled up to the house and tearfully told my story. Feeling every inch the martyr, I even borrowed phrases from my Sunday school lesson, the one about the herd of swine possessed by demons.

And you know what happened?

Everybody laughed.

That was it. I promised right then and there that I would somehow get even with those stupid pigs.

And so I have.

From that day to this, I always eat applesauce with my pork chops—with very smug satisfaction. ❖

By Alma Barkman, published originally in 2020, in GreenPrints Issue #123. Illustrated by Tim Foley