Northwest folklife (backyard version)

One of my longtime colleagues, an editor who had read in advance the Sunday Slice column about my backyard apple tree, wondered Friday if her children’s guinea pig would go for some local fruit. I told her I would bring a few apples to work on Monday morning.

So last night I went out back to harvest a few. Some I could reach just standing beneath the low branches. Others required a step-ladder. But, of course, the best of an admittedly sorry lot could be reached only with a rake.

While I was jostling one of those higher branches, an apple dropped through the tree. And I caught it.

I have lived in Spokane for 26 and a half years. But I’m not sure if I have ever felt more like a Washington resident than I did in that moment.