Lily's First Apple

            It was a bright day yesterday, the second of September, and I decided to spend a little time getting some sun, while I still could.  I had just started working on a new story for Country Folks – a profile of a sheep farm – so I took my voice recorder out with me.  I could wander around in the sunshine and go over the previous day’s interview at the same time.  How efficient!  It almost made me feel like I was working. 

            During my rambles, I came to an apple tree near the back corner of the paddock.  Every year, this one is a mass of red globes – Red Delicious, I believe – and I thought I might have one to round off my lunch.  Just a little earlier, while I was still inside at the computer, Madeleine had come to me with eyes a-gleam.  “I had an apple.  It was fantastic.”  Her voice was intense with both excitement and pride, as if she had just proved herself in a contest of wits.  “I used to think store-bought apples were good.  But they are NOTHING!!!”  I love her loyalty to the farm and her appreciation of all that she has here.  This attitude is a gift, I think, that comes straight from her nature and Dave’s nurture.  I’m afraid Axel and I don’t have much to do with either.

            I thought about Madeleine’s zeal as I approached the tree.  We have about a dozen apple trees on the farm, but this one takes the cake.  All the words I think of when I look at it – “laden,” “bountiful,” “abundant” – must have come into use when someone long ago looked at a tree exactly like this one.  I reached up to pluck my pick of the fruit off a branch when I noticed the apples already on the ground.  There were dozens of them.  And just a few feet away, on the other side of the paddock fence, lay our two bull calves, Iggy and Figgy, enjoying a midday chew.

            I tossed a few over to them, still listening to my interview with the shepherdess and marveling at the slowness of my voice.  What kind of torpor had I been in, and what kind of slow-witted idiot had the woman thought I was?  Iggy and Figgy roused themselves from their own languor and ambled over to see what I had sent their way.  Once they realized what I had bestowed on them, they gobbled the apples right up and looked back over at me.  I pocketed the voice recorder, which proved tolerably audible through the thin cloth of my shorts, and tossed over a couple more drops.  The bulls were pleased.  So was I. 

            I must have given them a couple dozen before it occurred to me that I could take a break to eat an apple of my own, fresh off the tree.  I made my selection and marveled – not at the pure deliciousness of the food, but at my ability to plunge my teeth into a piece of fruit that hadn’t come from the store and hadn’t been all sprayed to picture-perfect smoothness.  How far I’ve come!  I guess Dave has made some progress with me. 

            That accomplished, I looked over at the rest of the herd, down in the other paddock.  The cows were all staring at me.  I turned back to survey the carpet of drops and decided I should get serious.  Still listening – “So, with the cost of hay the way it is, have you found it harder this year to get the prices you’re used to for your breeding stock?” – I fetched a light-weight bucket from the red barn and began filling it.  Iggy and Figgy kept looking on in hopeful anticipation, but I ignored the boys.

            Finally, the bucket full, I hauled my trove down to the waiting herd and began tossing.  What happiness for all!  With winsome enthusiasm, they each grabbed an apple with lips and teeth and tongues and then tipped their heads back to maneuver the fruit to their waiting molars.  Chewing in this position, with such obvious pleasure, the beasts vaguely reminded me of (rather large) wine connoisseurs aerating their mouthfuls of fine wine. 

            This is what the adults did, anyway.  The three heifer calves looked on, knowing they were missing something, but fairly sure there was nothing they could do about it.  But Lily – three-month-old Lily – finally gave up the passive role and decided to join the party.  Darting daintily among the bigger bovines, she found an unattended apple and took it in her little teeth.  She swung her head back and forth a couple of times, and then she paused and looked at me, thinking.  She had no molars.  What could she do?  I had no advice to offer her.

            With those sweet eyes on mine and the apple clenched carefully in her teeth, I remembered her second day of life, when I found her hot and limp in a far corner of the field.  Dave and I had been away from the farm for a few hours, and during that time she wandered a long, long way from her mother.  By the time I found her, she appeared to be unconscious.  Her eyes were closed, she wouldn't move, and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth.  Dave was still off-farm, so I had to transform myself into a competent, clear-headed farmer-person as instantaneously as I as possibly could – no excuses.

            I remember my surprise at her heaviness.  She was such a delicate thing – only a day old – but I could barely lift her.  I had to leave her alone and fading in the field while I scrambled up to the house to get her a bottle.  I remember the relief I felt on my return, when her rising chest told me that the life of this perfect, precious heifer calf had not left us in my absence.  I cradled her in my lap to prop up her head.  I pried her jaws apart with my fingers and began slowly squeezing the warm milk into her mouth.  As far as I could tell, every drop of it dribbled out onto her beautiful, tawny coat, but I kept at it.  What else could I do?  Finally, she opened her eyes and struggled against me a bit.  I held her firm and kept going.  Her tongue worked around the bottle teat, and she fought me some more.  At last, as if to reward me for my efforts with the most obvious sign of a functioning digestive system, she pooped on my bare toes and on my sandal.  She really had swallowed some of the white, liquid gold; she was going to live.

            Three months later, seeing her with that apple teasing her tongue, I amused myself by supposing she was looking to me for help again.  Such sweet eyes a Jersey has, no matter what may lie behind them.  But Lily figured it out all by herself.  She lowered her head back down to the ground, clenched, and broke off a small piece.  She rolled and mushed it around her mouth for awhile, then swallowed.   She looked at me again and then grabbed another apple.