Twenty years ago, my husband planted two apple trees. They have never yielded any fruit until this year. I have made pie, crisp, and applesauce out of the few apples I was able to pick before the squirrels devoured the fruit.

“I stopped bothering to spray the trees years ago, because there was no fruit,” he said.

“When do you spray?”

“After the flowers die.”

“What do you spray the trees with?”

“Arsenic.”

Arsenic? Well, that’s one way to keep the squirrel population down. “What about eating arsenic-laced apples?”

“Wash them,” he responded, “…or save them for special guests.”

So our crop of apples is very small since the squirrels like to take one bite out of many apples, but at least the apples are arsenic-free. I can now freely enjoy the apple skin. And our honeybees clearly enjoyed the apple blossoms this spring.

For breakfast this morning, I used our apples to make the German Apple Oven Pancake:

• 3 strips of bacon
• 3 small apples, peeled and sliced
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup flour

In an oven pancake pan, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove the bacon and chop. Pour off most of the drippings. Add the apples to the same pan and saute on medium heat until tender-crisp, about 2 minutes. Add the maple syrup and bacon. Whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, and flour and pour over the apples. Place the pan in a 425-degree oven and bake for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.