Very Very Rare North Dakota Tree

You are in for a very special treat faithful reader, pictures of the most unique arboreal organism in the Upper Mid-West.  A one-of-a-kind plant in North Dakota.  A plant so rare that horticultural experts will likely flock to the area as soon as this entry is posted, and this will probably lead to thousands of tourists coming to the area every year. 

At first glance it appears to be nothing more that a typical pine/fir tree, unremarkable and ordinary.  The tree is growing in our next door neighbors yard and I had observed it for over a year now unsuspecting and unknowing that this is probably one of the living wonders of the world.  Here's a close up picture to help show the magic of this special, special tree.

Can you spot the fruit that this tree is bearing?  Look closely to find the red and red/yellow apples that are on this tree (click on the picture for a full screen view).  Seriously, this is an evergreen tree of some kind with apples on it.  Look again, can you spot the apples?  So what's the deal?  Well those really are apples on an evergreen tree.  Is this the rare North Dakota Pine-Apple Tree of legend?  Heck Yeah!!!

So what's the deal?  Is this a hoax?  Nope.  Are those really apples?  Yes they are.  So what's the deal? Well....about 30 yards to the right of this tree is an apple tree in the neighbors yard and they usually leave some of the apples on the tree for the squirrels to eat during the winter.  The squirrels grab the apples and then scamper up the tree for an apple picnic with a view.  Either they stash them there for later or have a few bites and get distracted (quite a few of the apples have chomps in them) and then leave them there.  So now you can tell your friends that you've seen a picture of a pineapple tree growing in North Dakota.