A couple we know called and asked if they could drop by; they’d been baking and had some snickerdoodles to share.

Sure!

So as we were visiting, I mentioned having this rootstock-regrowth Yellow Transparent tree whose apples were ripe and needed to be processed into apple butter or applesauce; they’re great for those and mushy and terrible for eating out of hand.

They would love to!

And so the four of us found ourselves outside picking apples as the sun headed down. They said how many should we take and I said, the whole tree–please? (It isn’t very big.)They laughed. They got all but the smallest that just weren’t ready to go.

Apple butter needs apple cider–so much better than mass-bottled juice. We had some, thank you Trader Joe’s.

They went home happy to have a tasty project to work on with their boys and we got to be done with that tree for the year. They’ll have four sets of hands coring those apples, and you don’t even need to peel them for apple butter, especially not those super-thin skins that give the variety its name.

And the snickerdoodles were delicious.

Afterwards I baked this recipe with some of Andy’s Yuliya apricots after all that talking about fruit and desserts. Why not, it’s our you-crazy-kids day from when we were 21 and 22. One more year till we get to be Life, The Universe, and Everything!