An Apple Orchard's Gems

The summer was hot, and every day the sun blazed. Some evenings it cooled by 15 degrees, which gave a bit of relief. Then there were the ongoing roasting weeks of no rain, no shade, no clouds. Even the insects were quiet and grounded, no buzzing. The birds hid in the scattered trees' leaves or flew off to the forests. Everything slowed down to survive the unusual heat in a climate usually comfortable.

The old man had nourished his tiny apple orchard from the time he was in his twenties, so this year it is his fifty-second year. Traipsing through the rows of trees, he stepped over his thoughtfully placed drip system, checking for damage and making small repairs as he went. Everyone knew him as Zestar (without the exclamation point in the name of an actual apple, Zestar!), although his name was Paul Star.

Let me digress a bit and explain how his favorite apple, the Zestar!, tastes. The University of Minnesota introduced the Zestar! in 1999. An early-season apple, it has a brown-sugar, juicy crunch and a long storage life, which sets it apart from other early-season varieties. It has a sweet-tart, tangy taste on the tongue, quite refreshing, especially on a sweltering early-Autumn day. Next to the Zestar!s were Jonagolds, then a row of Bethels, and Gala. In all, Paul Star, aka Zestar, had thirty trees of different ages and heights. His orchard contained a brilliant white gardening shed in the middle, its window flower box full of pink and red ivy geraniums mixed with perennial Creeping Jenny, that flowed down to the ground. Occasionally, children would pass by, stopping at the wire field fence to watch him whittle small creatures from apple wood. Mice and gophers occasionally popped their heads up from ground cover or their holes, but Zestar didn’t mind them. He always cleaned up rotten fruit so that his crop of apples didn’t get infected with disease or worms. Sometimes he waved a group of kids over to sit with him, gave them apple juice he had made the previous year, and let them select a carving to take home.

Paul’s trees were labeled carefully with dates, names, harvest times, and the taste of each variety. Some trees had lower-hanging branches with apples within reach. Today, Ellie, Myrah, Toby, Jess, and Billy stopped by the orchard right before lunchtime.

“Zestar, do you mind if we cut through?”

“On your way to the swimming hole, are ya? It’s hot today, that will be nice. Sure, go ahead and cut through. Be careful in that water, you hear? The buddy system is always in play as you swim, and no jumping in. You wade in so you can feel the depth. Go on, then.”

He watched them skip through the rows of apple trees. Billy, the tallest, reached up and touched one of the Jonagolds. “Haha, I can touch them, and you guys are not big enough,” he taunted them. He leaped higher to touch one of the Zestar!s and yelped when it fell from the tree onto his head. Billy quickly turned to look at Paul, the apple in his hand, then ran towards him. Paul waved him off with a smile.

As Paul continued whittling in the shade of his trees, he could hear the kids' shrieks from the swimming hole. Robins and finches sang from trees, and occasionally a jay clacked its noisy chatter at something. A car drove slowly by and stopped. They couldn’t see Paul. A young couple got out, and she exclaimed over the beautiful, neatly laid-out orchard, telling him how big the trees had gotten since her childhood. Her male friend walked through the gate to a tree.

“Which one of these beauts would you like to taste, Bertie? Or one of each?”

“Kerry, let’s go.” She was watching a girl riding a horse next to the last line of trees. Some of the branches were low, and the girl ducked down over the horse’s neck. She took out a canteen and drank from it, then hopped down.

“Ranger, look, I found an apple that fell. You don’t care about worms, do you, old guy?” She held her hand flat for the gelding to take the beat-up apple.

Bertie watched her climb into the saddle and canter off. “Why didn’t you want me to pick you some apples? They look juicy,” Kerry asked.

“We can buy some from a farm stand.”

“Buy some! There are ones right here, and they are free!”

Paul had listened quietly to the conversation and had seen his great niece, Mary, give the gelding a fallen apple. He approached the young couple, a whittled apple tree with one apple on a branch, in his hand.

“Hi folks. I see you admiring my little orchard. Come on over here and I’ll give you a glass of cold apple juice.” They followed him to his shed (he had no idea how they could not have seen it from the road and assumed they were like most young folk, unobservant).

“This is delicious,” Kerry said. “Thanks so much.”

“Your orchard is still so beautiful. We were just out for a country drive and I had to show Kerry the straight lines of the rows of trees with the different shapes.”

“I remember you. You're little Bertie, all grown up, right? Here let me give you a few early-ripened apples. Many of them aren’t be ready to pick just yet.” Kerry frowned while Bertie thanked him, putting the apples in a bag she had in the car. “Oh, and I think you might like this, young lady, since you enjoyed my orchard.” Paul handed her the carving and Bertie’s smile lit her entire face.

An hour after the couple left, the kids were yelling nearby, letting the entire world know they were on their way back. Paul watched them coming from the far end of his orchard. Billy was leaping, Jess imitating him, each acting as if the apples were a basketball hoop, but simply touching an apple lightly if they could reach it. Billy was an expert, and Jess was improving. The girls laughed at the boys’ antics, and all were breathless when they got to the shed. Toby and Ellie emptied their pockets at Paul’s gardening table, the apples they found rolling to the back of it.

“Well, you have quite a haul there, kids!”

“Yes, nine apples. There were more, but we couldn’t carry them all. We didn’t eat any either. The really old gigantic tree by the creek must have had the jays or a squirrel in it because a bunch of the apples were on the ground. Not many were bruised. We could go back with a wagon, if you want us to, and get them?”

“Thank you. I’ll do it when the sun starts to set because I have to get my small tractor and bring it up here. If you want to take some apples, I can give you a box to carry them in.” Ellie nodded vigorously because the apples were not bruised, and her mom always said, ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’

Copyright © 4/1/2026 by Andrea O. Corwin

I am grateful you read my work! 😃 If you liked it, please like it ♡, drop a comment, and subscribe for free. - - Andi

A story for the The Rule Everyone Knows Vocal+ Challenge.

apple information:

Zestar!

Varieties of apples