It’s that time. The freezer has long since been cleaned and overhauled. Beans and berries have gone in, along with jars of basil and cilantro pesto.

But now the harvest explosion starts. Tomatoes are ripening faster than we can say tomato. I did have to pick off two or three tomato hornworms, caterpillars of the gorgeous hawk moth you may have seen taking nectar from your bee balm looking every bit like a hummingbird gone frilly. Deposited them in a bunch of tomato debris away from the garden.

Everyone preserves tomatoes their own way. We cut the ones we don’t gobble up in quarters, put them in a pot with a bunch of olive oil, cook for about 5 minutes after it’s all boiling, and freeze in jars and bags to make sauce and soup until next summer.

But I’m not running a food blog here. This post is about apples from the leftovers of an ancient  orchard: two tall, wide, gorgeous, grand more-than-century-old trees flanked by three tall, elegant trees half their age, and complemented by assorted volunteers and trees we planted about ten years ago. Every couple of years we get a big harvest. Every four or six years, depending on spring and summer conditions, we get a super harvest. Bingo.

Our orchard is dominated by a tree I call “the Venerable,” just about the largest apple tree I have ever seen. We had to support the big horizontal limbs. We lost a support this spring, did not get around to replacing it, and a couple of weeks ago the branch gave way under the weight of a ton of small yellow apples. The carpenter and I are both so upset with ourselves that we have avoided going near the tree since then. This weekend, we’ll be taking the plunge and cutting up the limb for firewood.

[More below the photo gallery]  [AgathaO shows this fall]

Photos:  The photos may be ordered as "Your Pick" greeting cards and 8 x 10 framed prints. Browse the Galleries for more.

Jousting for Apples 1 (5 x 7 card)

The venerable in the yard (Jousting 9 — 5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, larger custom print)

Jousting 2 ((5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed print, and 8 x 10 custom print)

The Venerable in Black and White (Jousting 4 — 5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, 8x 10 and larger custom print)

Sun on the August Tree (Jousting 5 — 5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, 8 x 10 custom print)

Apple blossom time (Jousting 8 — 5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, larger custom print)

Jousting 3 (5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, larger custom print)

Piéta- 052519-IMGP6164 (custom print and similar card)

Jousting 3 ((5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed print, and large custom print)

August tree laden with apples (Jousting 6 –5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, larger custom print)

Ready (Jousting 8 — 5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, larger custom print)

Currently in my freezer as sauce (Jousting 7 — 5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, larger custom print)

The Venerable in Winter ( 5 x 7 card, 8 x 10 framed or metal print, larger custom print)

The Carpenter went into high gear beating apples off other vulnerable limbs and the yard by the house is littered with hard green apples from the October tree, whose apples need a frost to reach max apple-iness. Right now these little balls are mainly useful if you wish to break a leg, especially when you’re hunched over, passing under still-low branches trying to get to the shower, wearing naught but a towel and slippers. The hound likes these apples, and will jump to get one off the tree if you will let him.

Everything is late this year, but the August tree did come in just under the wire. The apples are crisp and tart and make the best apple sauce that is pink to boot. It was time to get cooking — we’re down to only one bag of sauce from 2017. However, these apples bruise very quickly and the stuff on the ground did not look all that appetizing. Unfortunately, the apples on the lower limbs had succumbed to the Carpenter’s efforts. I had to get high.

Last weekend I spread a big tarp under the tree, set up a stepladder and went to work with the pruning saw’s extension pole. It took a little bit of doing. Apples don’t just let go when you tap them. You need to shake the limb, which is not that easy to do 12 feet above your head. After some trying, I found that giving apples a little boost upward has them sail down to the tarp more often than not.

Which resulted in a six-foot Agatha wobbling on a high step of a wobbly six foot stepladder in uneven grass, carefully manipulating a 12-foot queue to delicately but decisively tap large red billiard balls suspended near the top of a 30-foot tall tree. Whoosh— I was transported back to Holland in the early sixties, at the fair with my grandmother and riding the merry-g-round again and again to get ring — an ancient children’s game that has medieval roots in training knights. Jousting for apples in the twenty-first century.

Try not to get an apple on your head.