Apples Threaten Takeover

I've been picking up quite a few of these guys on a daily basis for the past few weeks. At first, I'd retrieve six or seven keepers and maybe twenty for the compost, but now that many apples are ripe, I'm getting perhaps thirty of each. We have no idea of the variety of apple, but the tree is a nice old one, in our large side yard. Our neighbor told us that these apples are "not for keeping very long." Some of his, apparently, are. I saw him out on a ladder doing some harvesting of his own this morning. Let me tell you, there are many kinds of apples growing in these here parts. It's great!

The ones from these trees, behind our house but unfortunately not on our property, are used mostly for schnaps, we've been told. Any opportunity to turn something semi-edible into alcohol is much-appreciated and admired in small-town Germany. Hey, we live in the hometown of the famous, national-football-team-sponsoring Bitburger Beer, after all. Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with our imperfect but organic apples, which seem to be somewhat sweet. So far, I've made pie, crumbles, something like a cobbler, and lots of apple bread, from a wonderful recipe in the lovely Apples for Jam. But now I'm getting so many (I just picked up 35 more), I'm really going to have to do some canning, and soon. I'm more than slightly a canning novice, so it should be interesting; wish me luck.

Every time I head outside to pick up apples in the yard, this guy follows me out the door--but he's not so interested in the apples. He's always, always ready to play: he fancies himself something of a star soccer player because he knows how to punch the ball. He's a bit obsessed with any kind of ball he sees, really. Mind you, a soccer ball, even the small one pictured here, is much too large for Yoshi to hold in his mouth, so he mostly barks it into submission. All the neighbors love us, I'm sure.