Peter Piper Picked an Apple

Girl and I went apple picking last weekend. It sounded like a fun thing to do. A chance to spend some time outdoors taking in the weather and admiring the pretty colored leaves. Not to mention the chance to pick farm fresh apples (only minimally sprayed with pesticides, I hope) straight from the branch. A chance to do as our forefathers did:

Pick apples from trees.

It's in the Constitution, which you would know, if you bothered to read it, but you didn't because (a) you hate freedom and (b) you dropped out of high school in the 3rd grade. Trust me, it's there, right next to the one about the religion and stuff.

We planned to go on Sunday, but the day began inauspiciously. First, we woke up late. Second, I made bacon and eggs. Third, I sat around not getting ready. Fourth, in order to borrow my dad's car I needed to get to his place by 12:30. Fifth, by the time I got showered and dressed it was 11:45. Sixth, we cabbed it to the city, met up with my dad, got his car, started driving, and ended up at a place with no apples. Well, that's not true. They had apples, just not apples for the public to pick, which is lame. Who wants to buy "non-picked" apples. We might as well have stayed in the city and chilled out at Whole Foods. They did, however, have pumpkins for picking. Pumpkins are fun. I like pumpkins.

After scrutinizing pumpkin after pumpkin, rejecting one if it was too lopsided, critiquing others for having warts or other deformities, we finally picked four suitable pumpkins. I may not like dressing up, but Halloween isn't Halloween without pumpkins and/or apples with razor blades hidden inside them. That reminds me of when I was young and used to go trick or treating and would get pennies. Pennies! You can't eat a penny. Or at least you shouldn't. On the bright side, you can't hide a razor blade in a penny.

Then we set out for another apple orchard. This one was guaranteed to have apples. We drove, from New Jersey, back into New York, over hills, around mountains draped on all sides with the beautiful colors of changed leaves. Then we were stuck in traffic. Bumper to bumper, no end in sight traffic. A mile took 20 minutes. Finally, we came across a sign for the orchard. It was five miles away.

We came upon a side street, Pumpkin Hill Rd., and I ventured that the street would eventually meet up again with the main road. The road was empty. I asked Girl if she wanted to go on an adventure. She said sure, so I turned and away we went. No cars impeded us. We blazed for a mile or two and reconnected with the road, just as planned, bypassing roughly 100 cars in the process.

Back in traffic, but ahead of the pack. Making the slightest progress, but every inch counted. After another 20 minutes and maybe half a mile farther, there was another side street, Ketchum Rd. Girl, how about it? Why not, she said. We gave it another go. This time, however, we saw a man walking his dog. Surely, he would know how to snake around this traffic. We stopped and asked. He had no better route for us to follow, but he told us to go to a different orchard. He seemed to know his apples, so we decided to go along with his suggestion.

We made it back to the main road, passing roughly 200 cars this time. Driving slowly, but moving steadily we came to the bottleneck. A line of cars were attempting to make a left hand turn. They were all heading to the first orchard. Apparently, they didn't get a chance to stop a dog-walker and find out about the better orchard just a few turns away.

Once we were able to traverse the line of left-turning cars, we were smooth sailing, cruising down Route 17A until we reached the 2nd traffic light, made a left, drove straight until we came to a shopping center, Pennings Apple Farm was on the left.

The orchard was closing in ten minutes. We just made it. Once parked, we were given a red nylon bag and grabbed a 13 year old boy to show us to the best picking spots. His name was Matt, while working he eats about 8-10 apples a day, he climbs trees real well, and he got a girl's phone number, once. Matt was our guide, and Matt was good. He guided us through the orchard at an efficient pace, sliding us past other tourists with the same idea.

In no time we had the bag full of red apples, green apples, yellow apples. Although it was weird to see the ground littered with thousands of fallen apples, which Matt told us we couldn't/shouldn't pick because they could harbor disease, etc. It seemed like a huge waste. I mean, I was tripping over apples. It was like walking in a ball pit. If I was homeless I would move to the countryside in Autumn and go nuts on apples. The rest of the time, I'd probably starve.

Our bag full, we paid for our apples and drove back. It was good, but slightly saddening to get back to the city where the leaves hadn't changed colors yet.

Jared