Apple Picking Time
At school this week, I've been reading stories about apples and apple picking time. In the cooking center, our preschoolers have made apple animals and squirmy, wormy apples. We've talked about the life cycle of an apple, from bud to blossom, blossom to apple, apple seed to tree and back to buds again. The children have been fascinated to learn that apples aren't always red, and that they don't really appear magically in the grocery store's produce aisles.
Twenty-five years ago, Bill and I lived in a small house, not too far from our current home, with a large, old apple tree in the yard. Most years, it didn't produce a single apple, but one year, when Erin was a preschooler and Meagan was just a baby, we had so many apples that we invited our friends over to help pick them. We gave away baskets of sweet-smelling apples. They weren't red; I remember them as being rather small, misshapen, yellow apples. But, oh, there is nothing quite like the taste of a crisp, tart, freshly-picked apple. And they made delicious apple dumplings and apple crisp. The mere memory is enough to make me consider adding an apple tree to our already tree-filled yard.
As I think back even further, to my own preschool years, I remember the orchard on our farm just outside of Bloomfield. I don't remember any apple trees, although there may have been some. Instead, I remember the cherry trees. How I loved cherries! Even as a three year old, I was proficient at popping a ripe, red cherry into my mouth, and spitting out the pit when I had finished eating the cherry. I savored those tart red cherries then; I still do.
I remember warm, sunny, summer mornings, when our friends and relatives would bring their baskets and bags to the orchard to pick as many cherries as they wanted. We had several trees full of cherries--enough for all of the people who were willing to pick them, with plenty left over for the birds. Cherry picking time became a party among the fruit trees. The kids who were too young to pick cherries played hide and seek among the trees, while the adults shimmied up and down ladders, enjoying the warm morning and the fellowship with their fellow fruit pickers. Everyone stopped mid-morning for a glass of refreshing lemonade or sweet tea. Then, they picked cherries for a little while longer, until the magical morning threatened to spill over into a sweltering summer afternoon.
It's days like these, when summer is finally winding down, that I look back longingly to our Michigan years, when Bill and I lived in an area where orchards flourish. Our acreage bordered a plum orchard. From July until the the end of September, Bill and I enjoyed fresh-picked cherries, plums, apricots, peaches, apples. We filled our freezer with fruit. The sweet smell of those orchards still lingers in my mind. I can almost hear the song of the orchard orioles that flitted from tree to tree.
When we moved back to Nebraska, we brought a sweet cherry tree with us, and planted it in our yard. It lived for a few years, producing just enough cherries to eat straight from the tree. Fruit trees don't really flourish here in arid western Nebraska, but it might be worth another try. Perhaps, after we cut down the dying birch tree in our front yard, we'll replace it with another cherry tree--or an apple tree. Then, we can enjoy apple picking time once again.
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| An apple animal--a preschooler's creation |
As I think back even further, to my own preschool years, I remember the orchard on our farm just outside of Bloomfield. I don't remember any apple trees, although there may have been some. Instead, I remember the cherry trees. How I loved cherries! Even as a three year old, I was proficient at popping a ripe, red cherry into my mouth, and spitting out the pit when I had finished eating the cherry. I savored those tart red cherries then; I still do.
I remember warm, sunny, summer mornings, when our friends and relatives would bring their baskets and bags to the orchard to pick as many cherries as they wanted. We had several trees full of cherries--enough for all of the people who were willing to pick them, with plenty left over for the birds. Cherry picking time became a party among the fruit trees. The kids who were too young to pick cherries played hide and seek among the trees, while the adults shimmied up and down ladders, enjoying the warm morning and the fellowship with their fellow fruit pickers. Everyone stopped mid-morning for a glass of refreshing lemonade or sweet tea. Then, they picked cherries for a little while longer, until the magical morning threatened to spill over into a sweltering summer afternoon.
It's days like these, when summer is finally winding down, that I look back longingly to our Michigan years, when Bill and I lived in an area where orchards flourish. Our acreage bordered a plum orchard. From July until the the end of September, Bill and I enjoyed fresh-picked cherries, plums, apricots, peaches, apples. We filled our freezer with fruit. The sweet smell of those orchards still lingers in my mind. I can almost hear the song of the orchard orioles that flitted from tree to tree.
When we moved back to Nebraska, we brought a sweet cherry tree with us, and planted it in our yard. It lived for a few years, producing just enough cherries to eat straight from the tree. Fruit trees don't really flourish here in arid western Nebraska, but it might be worth another try. Perhaps, after we cut down the dying birch tree in our front yard, we'll replace it with another cherry tree--or an apple tree. Then, we can enjoy apple picking time once again.
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