Harvesting apples

We have had a very nice Fall.  A week or two ago it froze several nights in a row with a record low of 24 F one morning.  The frosts sweetened up the apples while the nice weather during the day allowed the apples to keep growing and turning red.  So I let them stay on the tree. Until today when I picked all the apples.

I got tired of the deer getting to the apples that fell from the tree before I did.  Last night Tammy and I got back home after dark after setting up the room for her Women's Expo today.  I only found four apples and most of them had been chomped on by the deer.

The apples I had gathered earlier and kept in a bucket in the patio to feed to Momma were found by the deer the other morning.  I found a number of half eaten apples around the bucket.  It seems as if the deer ate a third of the bucket of apples. 

I filled three five gallon pails with apples.  Now I need to go through them to weed out the ruined apples to give to Momma.

Another reason to pick the apples:  the black wasps and ants were busy feasting on the apples on the tree.  Ya... not a pretty sight.  Two more apples for Momma.