The first time we looked at this house, there was an old apple tree in the front yard. It had
one, fairly good-sized apple on it. So Bob picked the apple, took a big bite and said it tasted VERY good. When we closed on the house he asked the sellers what kind of apple it was and they said it was a Wolf River apple - a very old variety that is not common anymore.
Sooo, we bought the house and Bob had one of the guys make a sign for the front yard --- our old farmhouse was named and Bob set out to give the old apple tree a little TLC to revive it.
Well Bob fertilized and sprayed and watered that old apple tree and soon it was LOADED with blossoms, then little apples. I remember standing in the back of the pickup and picking some of them because it was so loaded Bob thought the branches would snap if we let all those apples get big..........THEN Bob sprayed it with
something....he thought he was spraying to keep disease and worms away.............. well, the leaves turned brown and the apples fell off and
very soon that old apple tree was "deader than a doornail" - - Bob's wife said "good job, honey" and after a year or so we started looking for some Wolf River apple trees.
In 2006 we found a catalog that carried Wolf River apple trees - - our 2 little trees arrived in the spring and we planted them near the garden. I wondered how long it would be before we had apples - I had visions of making delicious caramel apples with those BIG apples.
A couple of years later Bob bought a Skid Steer and while moving dirt around one day he ran over one of the apple trees. We talked about getting more, since we now only had one, but never got around to it.
We took good care of our one little Wolf River tree, even hanging little wind chimes from it's branches because the dear found it irresistible.
Today--
Bob was moving wood chips into the flower beds.....with the skid steer. This afternoon he came in very upset with himself. After a little prodding, he told me.....
he backed over the other tree. I had to laugh, then I went outside to take a picture.
I found what was left of the tree...propped it up against Bob's "toy" that makes him forget to look behind him and took a picture of the last Wolf River apple tree.
I agree with my husband, he is definitely NOT Johnny Appleseed and Wolf River Farm will be minus Wolf River Apples!!
