Sunday, October 6, 2013

We Will Have Fun If It Kills Us, Dammit

I've been a little too busy recently to be thinking much about the season (as an entity separate from the weather forecast, anyway) but autumn is trying its best to smack me upside the head right now.

The leaves are changing color and falling to earth.  Pumpkins large and small are on display everywhere.  And here in Mama D-land, we are in the middle of apple season.  Last year we never quite got around to making a trip to the orchard, which is pretty sad, so it's been on my list of must-dos with the kids for this year.  However, they have activities every day of the week after school and soccer Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons, which makes it a little more difficult than it might sound to fit it in.

Yesterday was crazy, as you heard, and both soccer teams (Thing Two and Petunia are on the same team; Thing One plays in a different league) had games this afternoon, but everyone was home by 3:30.  The smart thing to do would have been to flop onto the sofa and collapse, but no: I was on a mission.  Everyone back into the car, destination apple orchard.  Himself rolled his eyes so hard at me that I swore they'd stick that way, but he ultimately came along in the interests of family unity.  

The orchard was a madhouse.  We had to park what seemed like half a mile from the main building, then wait ten or fifteen minutes for the wagon out to the apple trees once we'd hiked in.  Add 20 minutes on the ride and an interminable speech by the driver (does anyone NOT know how to pick an apple, FFS?  Really??) we were finally handed large bags and released.  Good thing, too, since Himself was winding up to blow and Thing One was mere seconds from vaulting over the side of the moving wagon and making a run for it.

With five people picking, it took no time at all to fill the bags once we finally got started.  We had more than forty pounds in less than five minutes...I'll be making applesauce all week, I think.  Thing Two was mad that he had to stop picking when the bags were full.  Petunia was mad that I wouldn't let her climb the conveniently placed ladders to get the apples at the tops of the trees.  Both of them sulked all the way back to the scale at the main building.

It's going to be YEARS before we do this again.  Seasonal family bonding, my rear!






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