![\"Picking](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chasclifton.com\/graphics\/applepicker.JPG?w=625\")
The equinox is for apples. First M. and walk the small ravine that cuts through our land–that is where the feral apple trees grow. <\/p>\nThe equinox is for apples. First M. and walk the small ravine that cuts through our land–that is where the feral apple trees grow. <\/p>\n
I think of them as growing from apple cores tossed from someone’s pickup window 50 years ago, but really I have no idea. <\/p>\n
As Sally the witch says of the magicians’ orchard in Robert Graves’<\/a> Watch the North Wind Rise<\/em><\/a>, these trees have been left in peace.<\/p>\n And then we cross the road to a neighbor’s house where two planted trees are sagging dangerously with apples. Why haven’t the bears arrived? Maybe they will tonight. We fill our bucket in just a few minutes. Apples apples applesapplesapples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The equinox is for apples. First M. and walk the small ravine that cuts through our land–that is where the feral apple trees grow. I think of them as growing from apple cores tossed from someone’s pickup window 50 years ago, but really I have no idea. As Sally the witch says of the magicians’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[23,64,65],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-equinox","tag-mabon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-f1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2467,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2467","url_meta":{"origin":931,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry at Ostara","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Star Foster's Pagan song list for Ostara\u2014with videos! \u2022 St. Patrick's Day has passed, with all these Pagans saying \"Not us, we're the snakes,\" etc. Sannion has a different take: Patrick as Dionysos (Or Fun with Iconography). \u2022 I need to prune apple trees. Peg Aloi has some links.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":571,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=571","url_meta":{"origin":931,"position":1},"title":"Cold Weather","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I came home Tuesday evening and found that M. was upset because one of the dogs was missing. Shelby is a collie-mix who was one step above feral when we got her, and although she has learned to appreciate having her own bed, regular meals, and belly rubs, she will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dogs\"","block_context":{"text":"dogs","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=dogs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1032,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1032","url_meta":{"origin":931,"position":2},"title":"Feral Iris","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I love wild iris, but it's too dry here in the foothills for them to grow on their own. They do better in the higher, wetter mountains.But some years ago a colleague gave me a gunny sack full of domestic iris rhizomes she had left over after re-digging her flower\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":223,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=223","url_meta":{"origin":931,"position":3},"title":"Another short break from blogging\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Another short break from blogging M. and I are leaving for our favorite small town in the We(s)t Kootenays of British Columbia, which offers bigger lakes, bigger trees, and different mountains than those we see every day. I hope to continue the editing of Her Hidden Children with a goal\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9791,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9791","url_meta":{"origin":931,"position":4},"title":"Being a Solitary Pagan Does Not Mean that You Celebrate Alone","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the fall equinox (Mabon) is nearly upon us \u2014 1:54 a.m. Universal (Greenwich) Time on Sunday the 23rd. For North Americans, that is Saturday evening. What will you do if you are a solitary Pagan? At Under the Ancient Oaks, John Beckett suggests,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":483,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=483","url_meta":{"origin":931,"position":5},"title":"Apples and Honey","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Even though it was billed as a horror film, and even though no one whom I knew ever endorsed the ending, the 1973 movie The Wicker Man still inspired many of us who were then in the Pagan movement. We loved the idea of a place like Summerisle, a functioning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chasclifton.com\/graphics\/applebucket.jpg?w=625\")
Only one of the feral trees has borne really well, and I will need a longer pole than my garden cultivator to knock down the high apples. “Wait until after the first frost,” M. suggests.<\/p>\n