Pruning & nourishing very neglected apple trees

We have 5 old apple trees that didn’t produce one apple this season. They are badly in need of pruning which we started to do today although they still had some leaves.
These trees are behaving strangely: they got some leaves & many blossoms in the spring but the leaves mostly fell off. Then in early November they suddenly started sprouting new leaves & more blossoms!
Help! Any ideas about what’s going on? What remediation might I try? We have bottom land next to a creek.
We’re outside of Asheville NC.
Thanks!

I expect many are seeing their fruit trees blossoming in the late fall. This happened on a couple of my more established Asian Pears.  
Trees react to the shortening of the days as well as cold temperatures.  I think they get confused with the long warm spells that are now the norm.
High water table can cause leaves to drop.  It can also cause the tree to die.  I lost a Pawpaw and a Pluot because of high water table.  

Very high water table could certainly be part of the problem. Plus we had three very serious floods this year - our field & gardens became a frightening torrent of water, logs, branches, silt. It could be these old trees just can’t survive in these conditions.