For the last nine months, I’ve driven down Lewis Street at least four times a day. Along the road, there is a lovely white stucco house with black trim and a somewhat unruly yard. The bushes need trimming, the vines need to be pulled back, and one of the trees reaches dangerously toward the power lines that line that front edge of the property.
It wasn’t until late August after I passed this house hundreds of times, that I noticed the tree at the corner of the yard was an apple tree. Big, ripe pinkish-red apples hung from the highest branches to the lowest. Soon enough, apples fell from the branches to the lawn, sidewalk, and street around it.
Then, I began to see apple trees everywhere. A couple of blocks down the street, there is another house, a big sage green craftsman style with a huge apple tree in the backyard. Its trunk stands behind a close-lipped privacy fence, but its branches reach over invitingly into the alleyway below.
One day, I saw a girl walking from the junior high school down the hill. As she passed the tree in front of the stucco house, she grabbed an apple from the closest branch. The perfect afternoon snack. While picking up Parker from the YMCA, I watched a family picking apples from a tree next to the library. There’s even a mature apple tree growing on the back lawn of our new house.
I wonder about the owner of the stucco house on Lewis. While the homeowners seemed to be bringing some order to their unruly yard, I imagine they had not even paid attention to the apple tree except to pick up apples before mowing the lawn. Have they considered how to care for the tree? Do they know what type of apples grows from its branches? How could the tree be a source of care for the community?
As an East Coast native, who benefitted from the warmth of southern hospitality, now misplaced in the more introverted West, I hope to learn about the occasions that knit this community together in the past and the present. Using wisdom and inspiration from Eric O. Jacobsen’s book, “The space between: a Christian engagement with the built environment” and research about Sheridan’s apple history drawing connections between the Sheridan community and the built environment. Leading us to consider the possibilities of establishing new neighborly connections by taking advantage of the resources in our front yards.
Let’s get creative and imagine what fruit trees in front lawns can do for the good of our community!
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