It all started with the bees. Or rather, a disturbing lack of them.

Spring's balmy weather normally brings to Audrey and Lee Wagers' family-run apple orchard and farm in Amwell, Washington County, the welcoming buzz of honeybees, a seasonal event that ensures cross-pollination of the delicate white blossoms on the trees' wiry branches. Only this year, the number of worker bees transferring the pollen in their frenzied search for nectar was negligible. And without pollination, blossoms don't develop into fruit.

Next came the unexpected freeze. While early April enjoyed temperatures in the 60s, by mid-month they'd plummeted into the 40s, killing oh-so-many of those blossoms. A terrible frost a short while later destroyed even more of the flowers.

Yet the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back -- along with the Wagers' spirit -- held off until early June. That's when a tremendous hail storm blew through Washington County, downing power lines and tearing up trees along Route 40, where Wagers Apple Crest Orchards traces its roots back more than a century.

"Thank goodness, we didn't lose any trees, because it went in the other direction," Audrey says of the microburst. "But we sure got the hail." She pauses at the memory, then lets out a chuckle. "And it was big."

She can laugh now -- indeed, anyone who spends even a few minutes with this petite dynamo of a woman is bound to hear her laugh. But at the time, the "Apple Lady," as Audrey is known 'round these parts, spent a great many hours crying. God knows, good weather is never a given when you're a farmer. But that unforeseeable trifecta of events destroyed more than three-quarters of their apple crop, including the entire early apple harvest; what was left would be cosmetically marred with ugly brown spots and pits. And we all know the paying public expects -- rather, demands -- the perfectly shaped, shiny red apple.

"We're spoiled here in America," says Audrey. "We are used to nice finishes on our apples."

Not that she's pointing a finger. Despite her know-it-all moniker, neither she nor her husband knew the first thing about apples when Lee, a printer at the Observer-Reporter in Washington, awoke her after work at 2 a.m. one night back in 1962 and announced that they were buying his great-uncle Rollo Doak's 120-acre farm, which he'd read in the paper was up for sale.

"I thought if you wanted to cook, you chose a yellow apple, and if you wanted something in your lunch, you ate a red apple," she says with a giggle.

Forty-five years later, she's learned a thing or two, not the least of which is that it's tough enough in a good year to compete with supermarket apples, which are waxed to a glossy shine to extend their shelf life. (As with most local growers, the Wagers' apples are simply washed and brushed.) So going to market with funny-looking fruit? Talk about scary!

"She called and said, 'I don't know if I can do this. I've lost most of my crop, and what I've got left is pretty beaten up,'" recalls Steve Dettinger, volunteer coordinator of the Main Street Farmers Market in downtown Washington, Pa., where Audrey has sold her apples and other produce since its inception four years ago.

Mr. Dettinger, though, wasn't about to let that happen -- we're talking the Apple Lady, one of the market's most popular vendors.

He wrote in the market's very next newsletter, "We ask you to help her through this difficult time by overlooking the cosmetic imperfections that capricious weather has so suddenly inflicted on her fruit. Hey, we are all in this together."

Mr. Dettinger's call for support worked. Though her stand bears as many "seconds" as regular fruit (despite their rough appearance, they taste the same), she hasn't lacked for buyers.

They're "real," says long-time customer Judy Cholak of Graysville, Greene County, who on a recent Thursday was marveling over Audrey's Northern Spies. "If it's good enough for a bug to eat, it's good enough for me."

"Yeah, they look a little funny, but they taste really great," agrees Dana Shiller of Washington, another regular who shops her stand every week. "My kids are growing up knowing what real apples taste like."

To which Audrey responds: "It's people like her who keep us going!"

If there's any disappointment, it's that because the crop is so tiny (just a couple hundred bushels instead of the typical 1,000), buyers are limited to quarts instead of bushels. Otherwise, the Apple Lady would quickly run out. Among their more unusual offerings: Grimes Golden, an eating apple that originated in West Virginia in the 1830s; Maiden's Blush, a pale-yellow-skinned fruit that dates to 1817; and Suncrisp, a new-variety yellow apple.

Back when the farm was in full production, the Wagers had a staff of 30 and grew about 15,000 bushels of apples a year in addition to typical farm fare -- everything from corn, melons and cucumbers to sour cherries, peaches and squash. Much of the fruit was trucked to a plant in Erie to be made into Hi-C fruit drinks, while more made its way to Smucker's in Orrville, Ohio, bound for the jam or apple butter jar. The couple also sold countless apples to most of the supermarkets in town and a few in Pittsburgh.

Now, with just 10 of their 100-plus acres planted with apple trees, they're down to a staff of two: him and her.

At age 75, you'd think they'd be slowing down even more. And to be sure, their four children -- none of whom is interested in taking over the orchard -- are starting to make noises about their selling it. But good weather or bad, that simply isn't going to happen, at least not yet.

"It's a good life," insists Audrey, who loves nothing better than looking out the window and seeing their land.

"What's that saying?" she asks. "It's either laugh or cry in this cruel world?" Her face lights up with a smile. "I choose to laugh."