It’s probably a good thing my husband and I aren’t trying to make a living off our fruit trees. We have yet to have a year when the cherry, peach and apple trees all produced a crop — or a year when some manner of wildlife didn’t eat what grew.

This year’s apple crop is a case in point. There I was last week, gazing out the window to the back yard, smugly admiring the Red Delicious tree, which was loaded down with ripening apples. Unlike the green apples on the tree next to it, the fruit on this tree was visible from a distance, like a hundred little red beacons signaling their location.

Apparently I wasn’t the only living thing that got the message. On Friday, the tree was nearly bare, having been stripped by squirrels or raccoons. Whatever the creature, it was fairly tidy about its work, leaving not a trace.

The same predator is likely responsible for finishing the tail end of our peach crop this summer. Same pattern: fruit one day, no fruit the next and no traces of eaten fruit under the tree.

In many years, we lose our fruit crops because of frost damage in the spring, so it’s always something of a triumph to have fruit at all, even if scavenging wildlife take more than their share.

In recent nights, the critters have started to work on Golden Delicious, which now has fruit only on its higher branches. Its fruit is smaller and less spectacular, but the apples are crisp and have a nice sweet flavor.

I like using sweet apples in cooking because I don’t like to add a lot of sugar. The apples must be crisp, however, or they turn to mush. If you play it right, you can avoid using sugar altogether.

For example, I used these sweet apples this weekend when I prepared a baked pork chop variation. Usually baked pork chop recipes involve a substantial amount of brown sugar, but this dish used none. It was simple and tasty, and even my husband, who is philosophically opposed to eating baked fruit in any dish that isn’t dessert, was happy to eat this. The recipe is below.

You also can add apples to pot roast and stews to add another dimension of flavor to those standards.

Jerked Apple Pork Chops

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6 center cut or loin pork chops

3 tablespoons prepared jerk seasoning

3 medium-sized apples

2 tablespoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush both sides of pork chops with prepared jerk seasoning and brown them in a skillet over medium heat. While the pork chops are browning, slice and core the apples, and toss them in a bowl with lemon juice. Set aside. Placed the pork chops in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and arrange the apple slices on top of them. Scatter small dabs of butter over the apples.

Cover dish with foil and cook 1 hour and 15 minutes. Makes 3 to 4 servings.