Stunning Crisp Cox's Orange Pippin Apples

We have this gnarled, old apple tree, which I'd have to admit was a large selling point when we purchased our property. We think it is a beautiful old variety, the Cox's Orange Pippin. Very tart and very crisp when it is ripe and striped with red over the green. I've always loved the sensation of munching into the first first apple of the new season.
There's something so magical about this great providing tree, standing solidly on the land, changing with the seasons, getting even more beautiful with age, giving shade in Summer and many, many happy hours for Phoebe.
Aaron found an old ladder and has lashed it (gently, yet firmly!) to the Apple's trunk and Phoebe climbs up and hangs out up there in her kid-sized nook. The foot of our large apple is where we chose to site her sand and mud play area - much industry goes on underneath her shady boughs.
And the apples - so many - we've been almost teased by the apple tree this year - so many undersized/immature windfalls falling over the past several weeks - from a bumper crop. It could look like waste, there are so many - they carpet the ground in places - yet we collect them and crush them up for the girls in the Permaculture Chook Dome and send them off in buckets for the neighbouring pigs to feast on. And we've waited and waited patiently for our great old apple tree's apples to finally be ready...
Phoebe's beam says it all - first apples to eat! YUM!