Apparently there are extinct varieties of fruit. I did not know this.

I read this article a while ago, about a former criminal investigator who decided to use his career detective skills to find and revive as many extinct varieties of apples as he could. I love apples, and I love that there are so many varieties and that they all taste so different. The idea that there are varieties of apples that I haven’t tried blew my mind. (Also blowing my mind: That they refer to him as an Apple Detective. Cool. Also blowing my mind: That there’s an apple detective nonprofit organization. I want to go to there.)

This list of endangered fruit also exists. Also, it was published four months ago, so it’s possible one or more of these fruits has actually gone extinct since its publication.

I also learned recently (from TikTok) about The Old Man of the Lake, which is a tree stump that carbon dates back 450+ years and has been floating in Oregon’s Crater Lake at least since it was first discovered in 1896. The stump always floats upright, the top sticks out of the water about four feet and is sun-bleached, and the stump goes down into the water at least 30 feet. It’s a natural sign of life that existed in the 7700+ year-old crater before it was filled with water from years of precipitation.

It’s always weird to think about things that existed before anyone that’s currently living on the earth. I could wax poetic about how it reminds me of the fleeting nature of human life and all those things. But it’s not just that. It’s that there was an entirely different earth here before, with people living on it, who were doing different things in different places than us, like climbing trees that grew in a crater, or growing and harvesting apples that we’ve never tasted.

What if my favorite variety of apple (which is Gala, by the way) doesn’t exist for my great-grandkids (that would be a shame)? I’ve made a mental bucket list of things I want to do someday while I’m still young and spry, and one of them is to taste some of the apples that have been resurrected from extinction. I’d also like to go see the floating tree in Crater Lake. I don’t know why. Again, it could be that thing about human life being so short and fleeting compared to a 450+ year-old tree. But there’s something enjoyably creepy and haunting about tasting an apple that only existed for my ancestors, or staring at a floating tree stump that will probably outlive me and my entire family tree.