The only reason Dan planted the trees was because he was too lazy to mow the darn grass.
His wife Kathy had insisted that they plant the entire front section between the road and the house with that Kentucky Bluegrass.
Before it was a combination or big rocks and weeds, some berry vines that were just plain a genuine pain in the ass.
Even so, it was only a couple of times each year with his dead serious weed whacker, chop the things up all the way to the ground and then when the rains let up, set the works on fire, encouraged with a bit of gasoline and diesel fuel.
That was working just fine until Kathy bought that damned book written by the Al Gore fellow.
"Honey, we just can't be burning, it puts Carbon Dioxide into the air and contributes to global warming.
It was 28 degrees out at the time, Dan had on his heavy coat and the neat red and black wool cap Kathy had knitted to cover his fast balding head.
"Babe, burning is a natural trade off, all we are doing is releasing what is stored in the old plants and then the new ones grow and suck it all back up, it's nature!" He told her.
Hell, it was worth a try.
"That stuff you pour on there is fossil fuel!" She said flatly, her arms across her chest.
Damn book! No way in hell did Kathy even know what fossil fuel was until she read the goddamn thing.
"Carbon Dioxide is a requirement for life!" He tried again.
All that did was get him THAT look.
Six thousand dollars worth of truckloads of topsoil later, right after the bulldozer and plow had turned the entire acre in front to a ripped up barren mess, the huge sacks of seed arrived.
Four grand more for the damned bulldozer and the guys standing there holding their shovels down.
Kathy had carefully picked up all of the boulders, moved them over to a nice little row all the way down the paved driveway.
It almost worked out perfectly, except for the two truckloads of decorative rock he had to buy.
The truth was that Dan did think that looked nice.
Finally carefully groomed and shaped, the grass began to grow. Kathy seemed to be out there all day every day, if a weed dared to stick it's head up she was on top of it.
Man did that Kentucky Bluegrass crap grow!
The first few times Dan used the old push mower to cut the grass, that got old real quick.
"I need to buy a big riding lawnmower, he told her, thinking of the neat one he had seen down at the local appliance outlet. 5 speeds forward, 42" cut, it was green and pretty and even had headlights.
"Don't they make a battery powered one?" Kathy asked him.
"Well, yea, but this one is on sale at $995.00 and the battery powered one is like three times....."
Dan saw the look on her face and sighed. The next day the delivery truck rolled in, the big yellow machine came with a charger and all of the hookups.
No headlights, which pissed Dan off but there was nothing he could do. Once Kathy made up her mind there was no changing it at all as he had learned to his dismay over the years.
That began the misery of every other weekend, out to the shed, get out the overly heavy machine, mow nearly half a day when he could be down fishing at the lake.
The idea of getting around 20 gallons of grass killer popped into his head as he mowed, but he knew what the results would be. Hell, he almost went without dinner for a week when Kathy had found one of his cigarette butts carelessly put out on the ground behind the shed after he had hid there to have one.
The only nice part of the machine was it was quiet, unless she looked out, she had no idea if he was mowing or stopped.
Two long years of that, then one day the little booklet arrived in the mail. It had every kind of plant and tree a person could think of.
The minute Dan saw the photo of the orchard, with almost no grass growing under the leafy trees, the idea hit him.
"Fast growing!" The ad read.
Talking Kathy into it was easy, he mentioned all of the nice fruit production, and the fact that the nice healthy trees would soak up so much Carbon Dioxide they would end up carbon neutral.
"Just think, honey! Our family, carbon neutral, why, we might even be gaining." He cast a sidelong glance to see her reaction.
It worked, well, that and a nice trip to the beach, some sweet lovemaking, hell, he even took her to a fancy dinner and some dancing and did his very best to pretend he was dancing.
Kathy loved to go dancing.
The big truck arrived just a couple of weeks later, ugly little stick looking things with big bundles around the root ball.
Dan hadn't thought about that part.
By the time he got the third hole dug and the things stuck in the ground, he was back inside on the phone calling a landscaper.
Five thousand dollars later, the trees were in. Dan set up an automatic timed watering device, sat back to wait.
Man did they grow! It seemed that the soil was perfect, the southern exposure of their front yard was perfect, too. All of the trees were spaced so the mower would fit in between easily, the little circle of ground cover stopped anything from growing in close to the trunks. He did find out that those ground cover pads raised hell with the mower, he was more careful after he got the thing back from the shop.
By the third year after planting they actually had Apples, Kathy made a few pies and Dan ate a few off the trees. Dan carefully hung suet blocks in each tree to attract the meat eating birds, and he also sprayed them down, making darn sure that Kathy was off shopping when he did. He hid the extra bug spray in the shed behind his tool box, Kathy never went near that.
When the young trees that were now a good 8 feet tall leafed out in the Spring, they did exactly what Dan had thought they would.
The grass found it a bit problematic to compete, now a half hour on the mower and he was all done.
A little bit of grass killer here and there made the rest of the mowing easy, he hid that out in the shed behind the tool box, too.
That was about the time that the new couple moved in next door. Jack Harrison was about his age, his wife Sandy was a pretty little blond. They had a young daughter named Sylvia, for some reason the nickname Syl stuck on her. She was obviously going to be the spitting image of Jack's wife. Same blond hair, even some of the same mannerisms.
Sandy liked to sunbathe, and she wore an on the small side bikini out in their yard. That was fun, she lay there all slicked up with suntan lotion, the top of the outfit rolled down to where the top half of her nipples showed sometimes.
Dan liked that, she was a fine looking woman but there was never any hint at all of anything going on except she wasn't the least bit bashful.
Kathy caught him looking out the upstairs window one day, he might have been able to deny everything except he had his 40 power field glasses in his hands at the time.
She acted all fussed up about that, but then Kathy took to working around the house wearing just one of his T-shirts and she got pretty good at keeping him distracted.
Often the daughter would be out in the yard playing, and Jack didn't seem to be concerned at all with the way his wife looked when she was sunning herself.
Dan spent a lot of time carefully pruning his trees when Sandy was catching some rays. Kathy never even noticed that he could see, although she did enjoy it when he came back inside in the mood.
They all got to be good friends, chatting over the fence. They even had some back yard cookouts. Kathy floored him one day when she tugged off her outer clothes and plastered herself with lotion. Then she lay back and rolled her top down to the top of her nipples, just like Sandy.
Jack grinned at him. Hell, Kathy looked pretty good, she could hold her own. Her boobs were half again bigger than Sandy's, Dan noticed Jack checking her out several times.
For some reason that made Dan feel good, he was proud of his wife, and the way she kept herself in great shape.
Jack even liked to go down and fish off the dock with Dan, sometimes they actually caught a fish or two.
The trees kept right on growing. By the time Dan turned sixty some dozen years later, they were a good 15 feet tall and sturdy. He now was sharing Apples with people all over the neighborhood. There was a dozen different kinds, too.
Then one day he was out checking his crop, he looked over and here came Sylvia. He blinked a couple of times, she had been off to college and he only had seen her a couple of times in the last few years. The skinny little kid had vanished somewhere in there, what he saw coming was probably the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen.
