predation and a death in the family

i went over to the house for a visit and to check up on the plants out back as well as to see how much moisture there was in the ramp and ginseng beds…the wheat grass was on the agenda too ( it is fine )…as usual in the garden there was a mixed bag and some of it didn’t make me very happy…firstly ( and the most painful ) one of the three apple trees appears to be quite dead…while the other two still have a mixture of green and yellowing leaves one is just flat, dead brown…dry, crumbly leaves…a stark contrast to the other two…bummer if i may say so…admittedly they were planted too closely together and one probably would have been culled…but this disturbs me because I have no real idea what happened…the trunk ( if a two year old tree has a trunk ) was not broken nor was any bark missing…i have to wonder if something to do with the fire is at work here…but this is the tree that was farthest from the house…more research…such is the way of things…another issue ( although not nearly as serious ) is that some inexplicably late developing acorn squash is being gnawed off at the stem by predators ( once again i am fingering squirrels…daisy the garden cat has moved to the rental with us for the duration of repairs which leaves the garden open to predators more so than when she is on patrol…and daisy loathes a squirrel ) showing that the eggplants at the iuncg aren’t the only things that are nipped off prematurely…fall is here and i am pleased with that but not with the loss of a tree…I may have to invest in a decent table and another grow light to germinate another…not so much to replace the loss as to back up the remaining trees…need at least two to have fruit…nothing quite so lonely as a single apple tree in the plant world. since the photos never seem to upload in the order i choose them here's a list...top a thriving apple tree, second wheat grass. third squash, fourth...where squash used to be, and the bottom is the apple tree casualty.