The Case of the Missing Apples

[neverspent]

According to a meteorologist or climatologist on the local radio news recently, "It looks like the drought will continue through the winter months and into next year." Not good news for the trees that were stressed by this summer. Sometimes with trees, it takes a couple of years to tell if they're going to survive.

Two weeks ago when I was at the farm, I went out to the apple tree hoping to find enough good apples for a couple of pies. I'd checked at the end of August, and there were a lot of apples but they weren't really ripe enough yet. A few weeks later they still seemed like they could use a little more time, and besides, there weren't any on the ground. The way I've always been able to tell they're good and ripe is when they start falling off the tree on their own. If we don't keep up with the tree and pick them by the bucket (and we usually can't get all of them), we end up with a fermenting, cidery slick of apples on the ground, with wasps and beetles having a feast. It's been that way every summer/fall, as long as I can remember.



But this last time when I went to check, there weren't any at all. I asked my dad about it — maybe he had let someone pick them? — but he had no clue. Not a single apple left on the tree nor a trace of one on the ground. We talked about it, and our theory is that the deer must have come for them. They've got so little to eat in the woods, and it's hard for them to find water as well, so they're approaching civilization and trying foods they usually don't bother.

We agreed that if the deer are that hard up, we don't mind that they took the apples this year.

Comments

[shinsetsu]

Wouldn't the deer have left tracks, though, and some sort of remnants or leaf disturbance?

[neverspent]

They might have, but it's sort of hard to tell. The ground is so dry and hard, any areas that don't have grass don't necessarily take track impressions well right now. And the leaves on the apple tree are pretty raggedy already, though if the deer had apples I don't think they would have wanted the leaves or bark. I should have looked around for droppings, though! We just can't think of anything else that would have cleaned up the apples so thoroughly. Even a human poacher would probably have left the "bad" apples behind.