Advertisements ad

The Family Room by Michelle Martin

October 26, 2008

Picked over

When Frank asked if we could go apple-picking this year, I said yes.

I didn’t think too much about how it was already mid-September, and we were already locked into plans for nearly every weekend, what with soccer, skating and everything else.

So when he and Caroline had a day off school set for mid-October, I called my sister to see if she and her kids — ages 4, 2 and 8 months — would care to join us.

“Uh, sure,” she said, always looking for a reason to get out. “But we’ve already been apple-picking a couple of times this year with people from our playgroup. I’m not sure if there are any apples left. But I guess we can always call this a pumpkinpicking expedition.”

So I packed up the kids, some lunch and some hand-me-downs for my nieces and nephew and we headed out to Wheaton to meet my sister and her brood.

What with the need for car seats and the size of cars these days, we each had to take our own vehicles, so after we met up, we headed another two counties west, to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch/raspberry patch that has perfected the art of getting people to pay for the privilege of picking their produce.

There, we found we were in luck. There were still apples. Just not many. And not the really shiny, pretty red ones. The ones that were left were in close to the tree trunks, where the 4- and 2-year-olds could easily reach them by going under the branches, or towards the tops of the trees, where I could reach them. Many of them had small blemishes on their skin, but since they are destined to make apple pie, that wasn’t a problem.

Even better: because we came for “orchard clean up,” the apples were only 80 cents a pound, rather than $15 for a peck bag. Our two bags, harvested in about 25 minutes, cost less than $10.

Of course, after driving two hours, no one was ready to turn around and drive home after 25 minutes, so we ate a picnic lunch, played in the corn maze and let the kids jump in the hay in the barn. Frank, 4- year-old Skylar and I picked some late raspberries — Caroline stayed away because of the bees, and 2-year-old Billy stayed away because it was more fun to try to climb into the horse’s pen.

Then we snacked and Caroline insisted on visiting the gift shop (“She really is a girl,” my sister noted.)

All day, the skies were overcast, lending an autumnal light to the day, even though it was warm enough for shirtsleeves.

After a few hours, everyone — adults as well as children — were tired, so we piled into our cars and went home. Still with no pumpkins. But we did have a pumpkin pie and apple doughnuts to go with the apples.

It was a quiet day, with no high drama. But it marked another autumn, as the year turns towards Halloween. It wasn’t a holiday, but apple-picking excursions have become something of a family tradition. Those are the memories I want the kids to hold.

Martin is assistant editor of the Catholic New World. Contact her at [email protected].