“I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know.” —from Wild Apples, by Henry David Thoreau, 1862

This is one of my favorite November surprises, every year: the leaves are nearly gone, but many of the wild apple trees in the woods still hold their fruit. Some wild apples are good to eat; others are, as Thoreau described, “sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the civilized taste.” However, if “frozen while sound, let a warmer sun come to thaw them, for they are extremely sensitive to its rays, are found to be filled with a rich, sweet cider…and your jaws are the cider-press.”

I am more than a century hence, and I might just give that a try.