Apples, apples and more apples

When we bought our home about 10 years ago, one of the first things that I did was to plant two apple trees (one Cortland and one Gala) in the back yard. I love apples (and apple pie, apple crisp, apple sauce, apple butter) and I love the idea of having fruit trees on our property. They are still coming into their own, but this year the Cortland tree did us proud. I am struggling to figure out how to produce usable fruit without spraying them (I have yet to enjoy a single edible apple off of the Gala tree!) but this year there are plenty of delicious, if not all that beautiful, apples to pick. Today I started the harvest in earnest, and turned the first batch into sauce. William helped with the peeling, and the house smelled wonderful all day long.