Apples

We have an apple tree on our property. Our apple tree drops a fair share of fruit onto the ground, as apple trees tend to do. And Most Beautiful Dog discovered in short time that he really loves apples. For the past several summers, he will go out and binge on apples until his belly is distended, and then he'll lay around and fart all night.

The tree had suffered its fair share of neglect before we moved here, and since our assumption of our country castle we've been pruning it and trying to encourage it to produce a decent crop of apples. We're finally getting there. The firm, tart apples are larger and better proportioned this year than ever before. The other night, Hub and Incrediboy went out and picked some for me to make into apple cobbler. A bit premature on the ripeness, but for cooking we figured they'd do fine.

MBDog was stuck to me like glue, gazing up at me with his amber saucer-eyes the entire prep time. I think he took the raid of his precious personal apple stash kind of personally.

The cobbler turned out well. We enjoyed some as a late night snack and I wrapped the dish with the remaining dessert in foil, leaving it on the counter before we went to bed.

When I got up this morning and shuffled into the kitchen, I noticed the foil was neatly folded back and other than a few bits and crumbs, the dish was empty. Hub has a way of getting up in the night and tooling around a bit before returning to sleep, and I figured he must have put the cobbler in another container and placed it in the fridge. I looked in there, but there was no cobbler. Then I thought he might have had a midnight binge while watching a little TV. I smiled to myself. But took note there was no spoon or fork in the sink. Then it hit me. I picked up the dish and studied it under the kitchen light. And there they were. Large, sweeping tongue marks.

MBDog had tippy-toed out to the kitchen overnight, got up on the counter, neatly nosed the foil back, and ate my cobbler - what I'm sure he considered his rightful property in the first place.

I was peeved for a moment. I walked back into the bedroom and glared at him sleeping soundly, as one tends to do with a belly full of rich sweet dessert. And I couldn't help but chuckle. It *was* kind of funny. The little sneak.

I made another batch of apple cobbler tonight. This batch is being stored in the oven. If he figures out how to open the oven, I imagine he deserves to get that cobbler.