In the fall of 2013 friends who live about 10 miles from us called. They were on the road south to winter on their boat in the Bahamas and they had forgotten a specially picked bucket of apples. If we wanted them we could go get them. The apples were from an old tree growing by their house. It had survived the fire that burned the original farmhouse down (now rebuilt). We agreed readily. The apples were good tasting, green/yellow, good keepers.

2024 - Pruned off bottom two limbs plus pruned and tied down some tops to 10 feet. Looking pretty good though probably needs some more thinning. It's getting quite a bit of lichen growth. Set a nice crop of apples; thinned out those too close.

First October not quite ripe - seeds half brown, mild tart. Fruit similar to last year - russet/bronze around stem, a little light blush on some. Stems short, more round than tall (likely not Golden Delicious or Grimes Golden). Decided to harvest 10/4 to avoid more bird damage. Quite a harvest! About a bushel - 42# - most medium-large. Fair amount (13#) of light damaged with rot spots, scab cracks, bird pecks, but rest real nice. 

Nov.1 - a little more juice & flavor now, OK eating, pleasantly mild sweet but no wow. Quite a bit of rot (keep sorted out) and sooty blotch but most OK. Nov.25 - firm, just a little juice, mild sweet, OK eating (if no more flavorful apples available). Dec.16 - firm-crisp but not hard, mild juice, mild sweet, decent eating, interesting sweet aftertaste. Cooks quickly to not-very-flavorable sauce (best kept for fresh eating). Firm enough though to use mechanical peeler though large core require lot of trimming.

Dec.29 - Better (still mild) flavor, still good fresh texture. Start  eating daily week later when BlOx were finished. Now they are much appreciated! A little more juice and a little more flavor, quite nice when not compared to others. 

2023 - Pruned off one of large low limbs (will do others in coming years) plus a few uppers to open up canopy. A very well behaved tree with nice structure and as tall as I'll let it get (10-12'). And finally - Blossoms! Even better, while many other apple blooms were full open when we got the all too common late May freeze (mid 20's) Hoholik's blossoms were still tight bud which bodes well for getting safely through these freezes. It also meant this would be a late apple. It set 7 beautiful green apples. 10/8 decided to pick with a forecast for a week of rain and cold. These could probably have hung longer but several were past green to light yellow and the others a lighter shade of green. Russet around stems, light blush on some, peppery lenticels.

A week later I tried one and the seeds were only half brown - not quite ripe. It was firm, a little juice, light sweet-tart but with some flavor. It seemed very much a storage apple that needs time to reach its peak. I waited a month, Nov. 18 we ate another - nicer! Sweeter, more juice and nice flavor, dense-crunchy but not hard or tough, seeds brown. It was also strongly aromatic when i cut into it. Strangely the smell that came to mind was nail polish remover! But not in a bad way. It also has a very pleasing sweet aftertaste. We ate another the next day. It's hard to hold off when the apples are good, but I do want to save a few to see how they fare later. So far this apple was worth the wait.

Dec. 25 - Still firm, nice sweet flavor, maybe a little "dry", same sweet aftertaste.

March 1 - Ate the last saved apple, the largest. It was still in good shape but it had little flavor. Looks like this one should be eaten by end of year.