An Autumn Cornucopia

One of the rites of autumn for Pris and me has been our habit of making sure that we take advantage of nature’s bounty while enjoying an afternoon of brisk, breezy weather out in an apple orchard of the northeast.

Storm clouds blanket the old church steeple
and the flag over Melick's Fruit Farm.

This tradition began a long time ago, when one of my dad’s friends, Ovide Bernard, a full-time loom fixer in Lowell’s Merrimack mills also owned and managed a 50 acre apple orchard at his farm home in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. That homestead is long gone now, paved over with streets and studded with home sites.

Years later, when our own kids came along, Pris and I packed them in the back seat of our car on a Sunday afternoon and drove from our hometown into the then rural area of Westford, Massachusetts – Drew’s apple farm was our destination.

Old habits are hard to break; good ones never should be. In that spirit, weather permitting, we always make sure to carry on this practice in our now long-established residence in New Jersey.

On Friday afternoon, after the rains finally stopped, Pris and I anticipated the absence of apple picking crowds and drove the Subaru to Melick’s in Oldwick. We had gone there last Sunday, but didn’t stay. Business was booming: the long, wide lines of people waiting to check out with their bounty of apples promised that the waiting would be longer than the picking.

UPS is delivering the first basket to our grandson for his birthday;
the second is in the crisper; the third is for baking and sharing.

Returning on Friday, we were surprised: there were no other cars in the parking lot as we pulled up. So we borrowed a red wagon and walked it towards the section of trees hanging heavy with Granny Smiths.