The Out-of-Stock Apple Trees

When we moved to Wisconsin, I told people that I wanted to pastor there long enough to eat from the apple trees in our yard. I meant it. I wanted to be there for 10 years. Events in the denomination outside my control forced me to resign and we had to move after just two ripe apples from one tree. Both trees became special to me though.

We knew enough to plant what we liked to eat and that our trees needed to be compatible for pollination, so we ordered Honeycrisp and Pink Lady. A few weeks later, we found out that those trees were unavailable and that the orchard had replaced them with other trees. I knew that I didn't like the replacements, so I was forced to branch out and order trees I didn't know. I had to decide based on the catalog descriptions. 

I landed on Suncrisp and Scarlet Crush. Suncrisp was the offspring of a famous but fickle apple called Cox's Orange Pippen that was meant to be more stable. It was the only tree we had that produced, and it became a favorite. I loved the mix of sweet and tart. It's a delicious apple that I found because of an out-of-stock message. I planted another one at our current house and look forward to it each year. It is a part of our story that the Lord redeemed by having some friends grow just a few in their orchard of hundreds of trees. Apple trees are clones of the main variety, so these apples I eat every fall are genetically identical to the tree we had to leave behind.

The other apple, Scarlet Crush, was the offspring of Honeycrisp created by a breeder unhappy with the fickle Honeycrisp. I paid no attention to the apple breeder at the time because Scott County, IL meant nothing to me. When we moved here to Scott Co., I discovered that the breeder's orchard was 5 miles from our current house. I've still never eaten a Scarlet Crush apple. We moved before it was mature enough, but I can't believe it was a coincidence.