Since my apple tree stopped producing, we've been on the lookout for places to get organic apples. We've found some trees in various fields in federal, state, and private parks, free for the taking. Also, a neighbor has a tree that he doesn't use...he said they're too tart. But I found them to be Macintosh flavor and are quite good. Shhh! I won't tell him. He said I can have them all. So now we have a fridgeful of different apples from all over Ulster and Dutchess. I love autumn.

Sounds like a great time. The smell of fresh apples is wonderful. I like to store fresh apples in a cool "mud room" type storage area. The fragrance in the room is delightful.

I make apple butter from the apples on a friends tree. I first have to knock them off (the tree hasn't been pruned ever I think and is a standard large) Then I make apple sauce (just quarter them, cook them a bit, process through a funnel shaped thing with a wooden pestle) put all the sauce in a clay cassarole kind of thing I bought from the bodega on 107th and Broadway (back about 40 years ago) and put in the oven 250 degrees over night. Stir the crusty part back into the sauce a couple of times and add cinnamon in the morming. I 'can' the jars for 25 minutes and enjoy the resulting 'butter' all winter.