Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
Martin Luther

As a child I was fascinated by the story of John Chapman aka Johnny Appleseed who traveled on foot around the young United States creating nurseries of apple trees.  When our family traveled in Ohio and Pennsylvania in the 1960s, we visited places that claimed to have apple trees planted by John Chapman.  I marveled at how one little seed had the potential to produce decades of fruit (and hope) for generations of folk.

My two childhood farms had old apple trees–gravensteins and transparent varieties–good for climbing in and always great as scratching branches and shady snoozing spots for the horses and cows.  One had a platform fort where I spent hours sitting munching on apple cores, surveying the fields and enjoying watching the animals standing beneath me, relaxed, napping, chewing cud and swatting flies.

When we bought our farm here in Whatcom County over twenty years ago, there were left a few antique variety apple trees of a once vital orchard.  They were aging, with bent and broken branches and hollowed trunks, but still continued to produce fruit, great for baking, sauce, cider and winter storage. We’ve lost a few of the old trees over the years to the wind and elements,  though now nearly a century old, the survivors keep providing.

It seems I have followed an appleseed trail myself, a journey of knowing, no matter what may happen, if a seed is planted today, there will be fruit and hope for the future.

I’m determined to keep planting seeds and words in the midst of a world going to pieces.  It just might mean a kid sitting high up in the branches,  contemplating life and its meaning,  has an apple to munch on and words to chew on fifty years from now.

“O the Lord is good to me
and so I thank the Lord
for giving me the things I need-
the sun, the rain, and my appleseeds-
the Lord is good to me!”