A Non Apple Picking Event

12 October 2020

Story #1002

R. Linda:

So the annual apple picking day came up, and being shut-ins for so long, we were looking forward to a brisk fall day out in the orchard under a bluebell sky with fall colour everywhere. Most of all, the sight of ripe red apples beckoned us to pick them!

Dreaming of apple pie, apple crisp, baked apples, or apple anything made me mouth water just thinking about Mam's annual baking spree every October and November. Yummers!

Me sissy Sheila and her two wee ones are visiting so this was a first for her, the great American apple-picking excursion. Her wee ones were very excited, not exactly knowing what apple picking was, but excited all the same to be out and about with their cousin (me older ones are too dignified for apple picking, so it was the wee ones who weren't that dignified). Mam was along as she said, to supervise, we got "good apples."

The orchard we go to is usually jam-packed with apples, MacIntosh, Delicious, McCoun, Cortlands, etc., and we are there mainly for the last two because, as Mam says, they are the best baking apples. Usually, the orchard might have a few other people rifling through the trees, but because of Covid and this being a holiday weekend, PLUS the leaf peepers are here, the place was jumping. Most were wearing masks, and the social distancing wasn't too bad, but all the same, I made Mam and the kiddos wait in the car while Sheila, Tonya, and I went inside to pay for the apple bags.

$28 buckeroos for bags the size of a medium grocery bag. I tell ya, last year it was $18, and the year before $13 for the same size bag. I knew we'd load up, so we paid the highway robbery and went off. I grabbed a wagon because I had visions of the apple loads being heavy; we had three bags after all.

I gathered everyone up and we crossed the road to the orchard. The first few trees were Delicious apples, which we didn't want, and there were only maybe six on one tree, and that was it. Also, they were at the top where you needed an apple picker to get them, but those things were way up in the orchard. Not caring, we kept moving inward, looking for Cortlands mostly and finding them picked clean. Actually, all the trees were picked clean. Not an apple to be picked! There were discards on the ground, half-eaten, half-smashed from rot. This was the first time we ever made it to the very back end of the orchard, and not one apple to be picked! Why had they sold me the apple bags? The owners had to know there was nothing left in the orchard!

Mam had spied two crates filled with apples. One at the entrance to the orchard and one at the back. She looked at the apples and started rummaging through them. Tonya and Sheila joined her and started filling our bags. It was pathetic, I tell ya! 

"We could do this at a grocery store," Tonya mumbled, disgusted.

The ladies sifting through rejects

Meanwhile, I looked about for anything at the top of the trees. I had grabbed an apple picker and saw only a few apples, so holding up my niece (her and I wielding the picker), we managed to pull down one or two of the only apples we saw. They weren't Cortlands; they were Macs. 

The sound of childish laughter was not from the delight of picking an apple or two; it was from riding in the wagon. But me sissy got in on the act as well, still the big kid she be.

Too tired from picking apples, oh yeah!

Heading out with a lighter load, LOL

We headed for the pumpkin patch, which was loaded with pumpkins! We picked out Pumpkin Pete and a few of his relatives and took off for the maze.

The Corn Maze behind the pumpkins

There is something spooky about corn stalks rattling in the wind like skeleton bones. When everyone would stop chattering, the sound of those stalks was unnerving. It made us all feel good; we were in a group and not alone. Of course, the two wee boyos decided to take the lead and instead of following the paths that led to the back, they took the path closer to the entrance, which had us walk a mile in circles. I thought we'd never get out of there. 

We bought freshly made apple cider and three dozen apple cider doughnuts to take home after our disappointing picking session. That at least soothed the wound. Of course, I haven't heard the end of it from me sister about "dis be apple pickin' yeah Gabe?"

Cider and warm doughnuts, ahhh

I did get the kiddos candy corn apples as an apology, that the day wasn't all I had told them it would be. And yes, I sneaked one candy corn apple for meself I did!

Oh yeah, it was good!

Not sure if this is the new normal in apple picking or none thereof, but I have to come up with some other fall activity we can all look forward to. I be sure when me sissy returns to the Emerald Isle her apple-picking adventure will be gossiped about all over the place. But I have that photo of her in a wagon I can counter with. Yes, I do.

Gabe

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