A branch a bit thicker than an inch had broken (more like “cracked”) during the night, scattering half a dozen apples on the walkway below. There had been no storm, no winds, no rain. Just too much fruit.

I propped up the branch and strengthened a few others, but we may lose even more branches. There are just too many Golden Delicious apples on this tree.

The tree is carefully pruned each February when bare branches, often covered with frost, give but a hope of October apples. I stretch support wire from the trunk to the branches, allowing passage on the path below, giving the tree form, guiding branches along a trellis.

Last year, just one side of this tree gave fruit. Our second tree gave but 8 apples. Yes, only 8. This year, on both trees, the apples hang in bunches, like grapes ready for harvest.

I may have to thin the apples, destroying some of the smaller fruit, and even some of the more beautiful fruit, just to save the branches and assure a bright future for the tree.

The house was built in 1937 and still had the original, wood, double pane glass windows. I’m no fan of all that’s modern, but we had repainted them a couple of times, yet the south-side wood was rotting and all of them had eternal fog between the panes, so we decided to get new ones.

The above door-windows in our bedroom lead onto the balcony overlooking the yard. They are difficult to get used to because they close real easily. I had the habit of kicking the old ones closed. They weren’t mean kicks, mind you, you just had to keep on whacking the base of the window until it would finally clunk into position. Then you could admire the paint flecks floating to the ground.

I can tell this will be a tough tradition to break, and my grandchildren may be asking my children one day, “When you close those big, glass doors, why do you kick the bottom of them over and over.” And my kids will answer, “Well, that’s just the way your pappy did it, and that’s the way it’s always been done.”