Tom Brown, a 79-year-old from Clemmons, North Carolina, has spent over 20 years of his retirement tracking down rare, nearly extinct apple varieties that once flourished across Appalachia. Driven by his passion for rediscovering these heirlooms, Brown has revived more than 1,200 unique apple types with whimsical names like Brushy Mountain Limbertwig, Mule Face, and Tucker’s Everbearing.

His journey began in 1998 after encountering heritage apples at a farmers’ market, inspiring him to search for “lost” apples that hadn’t been tasted in over a century. Stretching across the Appalachian region—from southern New York to northern Alabama—Brown scours old maps, orchard catalogs, and historical records, often driving hours and knocking on doors to find forgotten orchards or lone trees tucked in remote areas.

When he finds a lost variety, Brown grafts clippings onto trees in his own orchard, where he cultivates and sells them for just $15 to encourage others to create “mini preservation orchards.” Despite the challenge of aging trees and a dwindling population of local knowledge keepers, Brown remains determined, calling the work both fun and fulfilling.

“It’s a thrill to rediscover them,” he says. “I’m happy as a lark.” Brown’s mission not only preserves these apples but also honors the heritage of the region, where generations of families once prided themselves on cultivating unique varieties in their backyards.

There's talk about finally stopping daylight saving time, which didn't save anything, just messed with well meaning people and enhanced the bottom line for anyone selling 9volt batteries for smoke detectors!  POTUS Trump, says it's, 50-50 on keeping or abandoing it.  Can't remember changing the time on a clock growing up, maybe my parents sat up half the night, careful to change the clock at 1 or 2 am... while we kids were sleeping.  All I had was a wind up alarm clock with 2 bells on top - and - a wall clock, a Kat Clock... a beige colored Kat clock, with the tail hanging down, swinging back and forth.  You can't imagine, a pre-teen kid, climbing up on a chair or chest, or brother, pulling that thing off the wall, changing the time, and then... struggling to get it back on the nail on the wall. 

It didn't purr like a kitty, just made this gutteral sound, like a mouse or sparrow was being digested and burped up in 2 second intervals... we somehow managed to sleep, probably swearing to hunt sparrows for Black Fat instead of letting him chase mice.  Every power outage, we'd end up either climing up the wall to reset that Kat clock, or ... if the hour was right, unplug it and try to get it timed just right, one kid at the plug, the other downstairds, watching the house clock, "Ready?  5-4-3-2-1 - plug it in!!!"  It wasn't a precise operation, but, close enough.

The wind up clock pretty much stopped, slowed down, sped up - what a useless piece of metal for us.  This sort of Brass & Sea Green thing sat there, across the room, the only thing we could see at night, because of it's luminious dial.

Living in the country, that was the only thing that made any noise, tick-tock tick-tock when you went to bed, as the night wore on, and the 'bladder alarm clock, insisted, you gotta get up NOW', the sound changed.  There you are, stumbling down the hallway, bleary eyed, knocking into everything, stubbing toes @ 3am, to the bathroom.  Finding your way back, that old Oak Floor in the middle of the night, barefoot - it felt as cold as a cement floor.  Crawling back into bed, after sweeping the cat off your pillow... getting back to sleep, impossible with that wind up torture device!  The bedroom seemed lit-up by it's glowing dial, and it no longer ticked & tocked, but had morphed into a Vincent Price's, 'Pit & the Pendulum' horror movie!  Terrifying to a 10 year old with an active imagination!  You're laying on your side, one eye checking up for a razor sharp, swinging Pendulum!  The windup clock was a necessary evil in the farmhouse, power went off and nobody knew what time it was - the school bus was showing up at 7:15am ... 2 hours for chores, then breakfast, and there's the bus!  "Click-clang click-clang"... better take another look, did I wake up in a Vincent Price dungeon???   Just about the time you're falling asleep from exhaustion, the air is filled with this now ear-splitting ringing - "Heck no, you're now under a WW2 air raid, in a London Subway Tunnel, and your brother is gasping & moaning from a gut wound, "Turn that darn thing off!  Which one of you idiots wound it up again?  It's Sunday, and we've changed the clocks last night!"  mumble-mumble, covers rustling, little feet hustling across the floor to the dresser as it rang - silence.

She's sleeping in, having been up with the owls, chatting with the girls... it's good to have a daughter or two home for a few days.  Gives her a good diversion from the Farm.  We call it PQFarm, because we hatch & raise Ducks.  Heritage breeds, keeping their lines alive, Silver Appleyard, Welsh Harlequin, Buff Opingtons.  Whenever we've gone to the hatcheries for day old chicks, they're bound to throw in a few of those, "Surprise!  We're Pekins!  Lousy egg layers, & we like to EAT a lot - forarging, what's that..?  Not for me!  Just feed me!  Aflack-aflack-aflack!"  One of two Drakes (males) is good, they're likely to do guard duty for the Ducks (hens) who are the egg layers we really wanted.  Big eggs, I mean twice the volume of a medium/large egg, a 2 Duck egg omlette is same as a 3 egg chicken omlette.  Pekins, when they do lay, are even bigger!

Yesterday, the farmer gave the girls the word, start laying ... or else!  2 eggs this morning!  Welsh harlequin size eggs.  It's cold enough, they're not fertile, so clean them up a bit, and into the fridge.  We'll wait till it warms up and everything is in full lay before we start setting eggs in the Incubators.  One of them we bought, it holds180 duck size eggs, the other I built, about 8x that size... but, we've never filled it that full.  Having the capacity is always good.  We've loaded up the small incubator many times, with a mix of Chicken, Turkey, Duck, Bob White Quail & Ring Neck Pheasants.  Those days are over, the kids were pretty involved with the bird operation & selling them at the farmer's market.  Farmer's markets were a 100% loss for me - I wanted to kids to learn how to SELL, it was for their education.  Sometimes, they came home smiling, sometimes a little bumed out, but it was always there to learn from, how to sell & barter.  They'd sell day olds, week olds and hardened off chicks - the latter didn't need any heat lamps... prices went up each week as our input costs rose.  Once the kids starting figuring out the initial pricing, adding in feed & heat lamp costs for older birds - I would just back away, and let them figure it out, occasionally getting a call, "What do you think about this price for ...".   They got better and better at Farmer's Markets, often selling everything they took.

The boys managed to turn the Turkey chicks into Pet's ... they'd follow them accross the yard, while free ranging, begging for easy treats!  One of the boys would be laughing, 20 or more Turkey chicks at his feet, pecking away at his shoes, or anything shiney, to the point of becoming annoying.  He'd sit on the glider of the Front Porch, half a dozen Turkey chicks surrounding him, asleep... "I can't move, dad! I'm covered in Raptors!"  What???  "Raptors have me pinned down!"  A peek out the window, 'Oh, his Turkeys are napping on his lap again.'  The next month, they'd all sell at the Farmer's Market, and there was little doubt, bringing joy to another buy.  "You guys like to hand-tame your birds, we really like that, about your family!" - so did we, a repeat customer.  I hope they managed to serve those birds up for Thanksgiving... Those broad-breasted birds could be well over 50-60 lbs if you'd let them go till Christmas!  36 lbs was our biggest we ever tried to squeeze into our oven, even 20 of us, couldn't finish that bugger off.

Thanks to the neighbor's dogs... we're down to 3 Pekins & 3 Welsh Harlequin Ducks (1 Drake & 2 Ducks, of each), unfortunately, they are near 4 years old, so..... we're going to try and get some new birds, just incase these guys are sterile.  And... I wanna get a tray or two of Bob White Quail eggs to set.  The Fillet Mignon of the Sky, like a Florida Pompono is to fish, Wagyu Beef to cows - so is Bob White Quail to birds.  Most of them will wind up as Owl & Hawk food as we release a bunch of them.  Quail are like little birdie buddies too!  One of the girls would hang around the incubator, opening the door, so they would see her face right after hatching, "Are you my mommie?" - and follow her around like baby kittens.  They'd grow up, loving people.  Hearing them calling in the morning & evenings, or suddenly flush in the tall grassy areas - man-o-man, that's real country living.  It's a reminder for me, God has/had a purpose in everything, even allergies.

The sun is high, warm sunny day.  Ducks are just peacefully floating around the front pond, frockling is over - I bet they'd like so fresh popped corn!  Ya know, as many days & hours spent sitting in a saddle, I can't ever remember dozing off.  At my height, 6'3", with that much weight leverage over a horse's center of balance, knowing shifting my weight around they'd stagger like a drunk - we could both fall over!  Often said to the Students in Riding lessons, "you gotta fall 1000 times before you're and expert" - I might have reached half of that if you rolled all those falls in, as a kid on a pony.  Time to go pop some corn...

Went to a gun show yesterday, taking another couple with us. He hasn't shot anything in years, maybe a decade...? She's interested in getting into the AWA group, learning among women, having fun in a safe way. Funny ... seeing my wife and her together, both 5'4" ... Wife browsing over tables, looking for literature ( ? she's a avid reader), and the friend's wife ... looking overwhelmed. We came across a McClellan Saddle... unkept and in desperate need of cleaning.... missing some parts.

Father-In-Law was rummaging through his closet or garage or something, can came across his old Ithaca 20 gauge double barrel shot gun, last week.  Seeing and holding that thing, a flood of memories & stories came back to his 88 yearr old mind.  He spoke of taking his little girl, now my wife, rabbit hunting - not for sport, but meat for the table, with his beagle, Champ.  To purchase Champ, he'd looked for a good hunting dog with his buddy - it was too expensive for either one of them, they went in together and dad took the dog to stay with him.  From there, many trips into the tall grass, gun in hand, dog dodging too and fro, looking for rabbits.  He'd pop one, Champ had to see the rabbit was 'in hand' or he'd assume it was still ready to skeddadle off again.  Rabbits can sit there, real still like, until almost stepped on, and then bolt & bound away, zig-zagging - Champ hot on it's tail.  Dad remembers the best parts of hunting - unless I mention the worst parts, like freezing your ass off, windy & cold days ... feeling desperately hungry & wondering what your family was gonna eat that night beside potatoes.

This particular gun show, had 2 of these shot guns, dad hunted with.  I shot it once, and couldn't believe the snappy recoil it had for such a little gun, light weight guns can do that.  Since he was interesting in 'what is is worth', and like most antique owners, his was in pristine condition, like it was still in the box... Heh, I think he forgot the times he laid it on the wet ground, leaned it against the brick house, or it bounced around in the truck, making tiny dents in the wood stock, leaving scratches in the blueing.  All the things that aged the gun and his 88 year old body.  If I ever see it, there's gonna be a few more stories, 'Oh yeah, it got loaned out to, and he foolishly laid it down in gravel - scratched the hell out of it!  Still it's in excellent condition, check the bore!  It's as shiney as new!' ... except for the plastic wad & lead fouling - 'a good cleaning would take that 40 year old fouling right out!', he'd claim.  Yeap, a good confession of your lying imagination would clean your soul too!  Naturally, a family heirloom is 'priceless' and 'perfect'

It was the same gun, dad handed his daughter, my wife, one day, she'd been begging and begging, big Doe-like Brown Eyes - Disney probably modeled the Bambi cartoon after those pretty brown, irresistable eyes... alas, he relented.  Dads love their kids, and little girls, just melt a dad's heart ... Yep, I've gotten suckered into all kinds of 'cat and dog' deals, "I promise, I'll feed it every day, house break it, keep it from chewing the furniture, take it for walks, teach it manners & tricks..."  The only one rolling over to play dead - is dad.  Well, that dad has many more stories untold, according to my wife, his daughter.  Like the time he peppered Champ in the south end of the dog facing north (that's polite for 'ass'), and by golly, that dog still hunted, yelping a bit, with a few pellets in the hindquarters.  Naturally, learning this 'Shhh... honey, don't tell mom' story, it's been locked away in her & his memory ... until the timing is ripe - and I ask him about it at the most possible embarrassing moment!  My wife, his daughter, says, "You're terrible!  But awfully funny..!"  Every embarrassing weakness... needs to be stagetically exposed, among friends, sometimes after a beer, or to shift the advantage of a board game... laughter is good for the soul.

With the grace of God, maybe I can play a part in restoring some of the joyful memories in my FIL's heart.  With his dementia laden wife, not able to share those decades of memories, enter the former Hippie son-in-law who stole away his little hunting partner to become his wife.  Little did anyone realize, we'd grow closer together with age and a throng of kids/grandkids, to have so much in common in love and life.  14 hours apart by car, but meer moments by telephone, it's just about time to give him a call today, share a smile. and let him know, I got everything I need, between the Lord and my lovely wife, his wonderful (former) little hunting buddy.

God has been very good to me!  Maybe we can pinch-hit for mom & bring some joy & humor back.