Apples!

This past Saturday, Mary and I went apple picking, but not the “let’s pay to pick because we’re cute yuppies” type of picking. Instead, we were up in Mercer, Maine at the Sandy River Orchard with about 18 other folks to lend a hand. The orchard is owned by Francis Fenton and, as he’s in his 92nd year, a few of the folks in town came out to help him out.

We all met at his house around 9 am and, after some coffee and homemade donuts (Krispy Kreme has nothing on these), his daughter broke us into groups, gave us buckets, pickers (metal-tined baskets on long poles), divvied up the work list and sent us off. We spent the next 3 hours under blue skies, plucking Red and Yellow Delicious, Arkansas Black, Rome, Empire and massive 20 ounce apples off the trees and loading them into crates.

I spent most of the time with Mary’s dad shuttling full crates back to the stand in his truck. In between trips, I got to talking with Francis. “I’m the last Fenton,” he told me, after explaining that his family has been farming that land since the 1850s. “My granddaddy was in the Civil War. Not many people can say that these days – their grandparents are in Florida.” After a quick chuckle, he continued, “Well, he wasn’t actually in the war. He was supposed to go, but his brother went for him because he had a wife and four kids and his brother wasn’t married. He was killed at Gettysburg. All wars are stupid, just a terrible waste.”

Well put Francis. He then attempted to go back to hauling crates on his small tractor but seemed unable to walk more than 5 steps before he was sharing a story or talking about apples with someone else. He can work a crowd better at age 92 than I can now, or probably ever will.

By the time the last apple was picked, we had filled over 50 crates and that wasn’t even all of the trees (according to Francis, the Romes are best left until a good frost can “sweeten” them up a bit).

We all met back at the house for a home-made lunch – baked beans, deviled eggs, sandwiches, apple pie, blueberry pie and at least 2 kinds of coffee cake. That morning, I was a stranger to the group (with the exception of Mary’s family). By lunch, I felt like an old neighbor (well, almost, as I don’t have any trace of a Maine accent and “from away” will always be “from away”, even Portland barely counts as Maine to these folk).

Later that afternoon, as I was drifting off into a nap, I thought about the morning – blue skies, picking apples, helping a neighbor out for good stories and a home made meal in return – and then wondered just how soon we’ll be moving north.