<\/p>\n
When Leon Risenhoover,76, looks out the windows of his Dolores farmhouse, apple trees stretch out before him.<\/p>\n
Whe he looks at the trees, he sees a history of Montezuma County that can be told by the apples themselves.<\/p>\n
Risenhoover has trees on his property that were planted in 1906, when trains still trundled into the county and hauled the apples out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was supposedly the first double red delicious in the valley,\u201d Risenhoover said as he gave a recent tour of his orchard, with towering trees sporting large gnarly trunks and sheep milling about.<\/p>\n
This year, there was a late frost, so few bright red apples dot the trees. Late rains delayed the harvest. His crop last year was small too.<\/p>\n
Being an apple farmer in Montezuma County isn\u2019t easy, Risenhoover said. \u201cYou get about six years of good crops out of every 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
This could explain why apples aren\u2019t as abundant as they were in the early 1900s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is too much work for very little return,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, Risenhoover was planning on going out in the field to pick and be ready to sell them for about $1 a pound.<\/p>\n
He grows the double red delicious, winesaps, Romes and golden delicious.<\/p>\n
When asked his favorite, he reached into some branches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe red delicious, hands down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With a rub on his shirt, the apple took on a shiny glow, and it tasted, well, delicious.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see,\u201d he said. \u201cThose red delicious types in the store \u2013 they don\u2019t taste anything like that. They are probably a year old in the store.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, their thick skin and beauty is what earned the red delicious such popularity, but their longevity was ultimately their downfall and the reason they have a bad name today.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to get them fresh from the orchard, my orchard,\u201d he said, smiling.<\/p>\n
To buy Risenhoover\u2019s apples, drive to 14856 CR 26, Dolores. Risenhoover said to be sure to honk to get his attention and be patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t move fast anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
farmer’s trees tell history of Montezuma County’s orchards<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6363],"tags":[188,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-117310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-news","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117310"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=117310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}