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From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>Subject: Fwd: EPISODE 1,409: EDWARD FREEMAN: HEAD GARDENER: THE LAST APPLE TREE 1916? – 2025Date: May 28, 2025 at 11:01:52 AM EDTTo: john Wardle <jwardle@rogers.com>, Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com>
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From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>Subject: EPISODE 1,409: EDWARD FREEMAN: HEAD GARDENER: THE LAST APPLE TREE 1916? – 2025Date: May 26, 2025 at 9:00:38 PM EDTTo: john Wardle <jwardle@rogers.com>
EPISODE 1,409: EDWARD FREEMAN: HEAD GARDENER: THE LAST APPLE TREE 1916? – 2025alan skeochmay 26, 2025NOT MUCH OF AN APPLE TREE
Not much of a tree,I admit. More dead than alive. An apple whose apples are scabby, wormy and small.Only one branch is alive, the others have been dead for years. Decades.Edward Freeman bought this 25 acre farm for $2,000 in 1916. Not much of a farm then and notmuch of a farm now…dominated by one giant swamp and several small swamps. Only one tiny patchof good soil while the rest of the land is a glacial dump with many boulders rolled smooth by the icefor thousands of years.Edward Freemans family suffers a lot of disapointment . The dream of a newlife inCanada had been a nightmare by1916…an 8 year nightmare. 1908 to 1916…tough years.Canada was not a pleasant place. It was on fire…really on fire and Edward Freeman got burned.
This farm, however. was wherethe Freeman family rooted themselves and where some of their progeny remain rooted.WHO COULD POSSIBLY BE INTERESTED IN THE SLOW DEATH OF AN APPLE TREE?I think you could. That tree will soon be gone … only a memory that will never be replicated. Never ever?Appple trees are like humans that way. They do not breed true. When our son Andrew revs up hischain saw next week or next month and the chips start to fly that apple tree will be no longer. So this storywill be all that remains.Mygrandfather, Edward Freeman planted this tree around 1920 give or take a few years. I think he was tryingto recreate hia early year when he was head gardener of Eywood, a country estate…1500 acres…in the heart ofHerefordshire, England. Apple Country where Red Streak apples, grafted apple trees. were crushed andsqueezed and aged to produce he best hard apple the world has ever produced.Cider apples are special. Not cooking apples….notnot applesauce apples. idea apples….hard apple cider with an alcohol content adored by drinkers some of whomdrank from crystal glasses and by less sophisticated scrumpy version sold from beneath pub counters in tankards.I never really knew my grandfather except in bits and pieces. When I remember him best he was an elderlyman who dragged his arthritic leg to the woodpile behind the farm house to split kindling for winter fires. I had no idea
what meant to be a head Gardener in England.Oh I knew him. Like when granddad and mom pinned medown in the bedroom beside the attic with a salt and water solution to kill the pin worms of my youth. Or later when we….grandfather and meshot a porcupine in the big maple tree. I did not want to do it but porcupine quills in farm dogs noses were bad he said.Let’s pretend we have the power to recreate Edward Freeman using the bits and fragments he left behind.Let’s use this old apple tree to take us back. Both the apple tree and Edward Freeman are worth the time tunnel trip.It will take several episodes. By the time we are done the apple tree will be cut into chord wood some of which will bepresent in the smoke we breath and thereby be a part of us.1916 WAS NOT THE BEGINNING OF THE FREEMAN STORY…FAR FROM IT….WE MUST GO BACK TO 1871NEXT EPISODE
Alanpost script; Warning, do not chew apple seeds . Why? because they contain cyanide which is a dangerous poison.If you chew between 150 and 1,000 appleseeds you could get very sick.
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