More Than the Garden to Savor

Early this morning, in the cool of yet another in this string of mornings that feel more like October than July, we walked the prairie path.  We hadn't been around it in weeks -- heat, I suppose, in those earlier days of summer; and travel and, at the very least, distraction.  It needs mowing -- nature's miscellany has begun to encroach and pop up along the way; intruding branches, sprouting weeds and spreading brush -- but the surrounding grasses are tall and stately, brushed with Queen Anne's Lace and  polka-dotted with wildflower blossoms of yellow and lavender and blue.  We commented as we passed the hives that the bees must surely be enjoying the flowering pantry.

By the time we rounded the base of the circle and turned back toward the house our shoes were wet with dew.  Not ready to end our circuit we opted for the side path that branches off to the east and eventually dead-ends at the fire pit.  It was there, off in that direction and from that proximate vantage point, that Lori called attention to the tree and confirmed what she thought she had noticed from the distant window last evening:
Apples.
Lots of them.
Dotting the branches like ornaments at Christmas. 
Our delight at their discovery was matched only by our mystification.  This, after all, is not our first exposure to this season here.
Where were these apples last summer? 
Or where were we?
Did last year's heat and drought suffocate their development?
Or were they there and we were too distracted to see?

They aren't questions we are likely to answer.  But this year we noticed, and will continue to do so as the fruit hopefully ripens and eventually add themselves to our harvest basket that is more presently dominated by squashes and tomatoes and the rest of the treasures inside the fence.  They are precious enough and I am unspeakably grateful for them.  But these surprise ones, unprotected and unsolicited, out on the isolated tree and heretofore unseen, may well, for their unexpectedness, prove to be even sweeter. 

It sort of gives me pause to look around more carefully and wonder what other fruit might be hanging where I least expected it to be.