The weekend after my big test my family and I took off for a local apple orchard. My wife was excited to finally reclaim her husband (at least temporarily) from the trials and tribulations of what has become the “testing semester.” Our son is so young that he doesn’t really get excited about something that is going to happen but rather about what is happening. Needless to say he was very happy to be spending some quality time outdoors with his parents. We arrived fairly early on but soon found that lots of people were out and about grabbing breakfast (fresh pancakes with baked apples in cinnamon) or picking up some of the wares (applebutter, cider, souveneirs, etc…) or even buying pumpkins for the upcoming holiday of horror. We were going to have a really good time.
Once we figured out which apples were in season and where to find our buckets for picking we were off! Down a dirt road and a turn to the right we found ourselves surrounded by trees bearing fruit. Our son got down on the ground and immediately picked up a rotting apple happily off of the ground. That wouldn’t do. Mom replaced it with a good apple and our son happily strolled along the trees eating his apple for a good length of time. Mom was in charge of this event and took off down the lane to find the best apples. She gathered what she could and directed me to pick the ones at the tops of the trees that were out of her reach. Despite our son’s desirable size for picking the low hanging fruit he didn’t really understand the concept all that well and was quite content eating the apple in his hand and watching his parents crawl on the ground while avoiding branches. At the end of the day we had a big bag of apples, some apple butter, a gallon of cider, and even a pumpkin that my wife looks forward to carving with our son. A successful day — and one we’ll remember.