The first field trip of Fall

 

Apples!! Every September for the last seven years I have taken the boys up the hill to apple country to meet friends and pick our own first fruits of fall. Last week we visited on the very first day the farm was open.

 

We almost didn't make it this year... as that flu I mentioned the boys having finally hit me, and I probably should have stayed in bed. Poor Eldest was distraught -- what could I do? The unthinkable. I drugged myself. My kind neighbor had just the thing. And then I prayed the whole way there... and back.

The boys and their friends picked apples... Jonagolds and Empires... and helped Mr. Pulford sort them by size... and ate as many as their tummies could handle.

 

 

And had a sweet, crunchy, good time.

To Autumn, by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
       To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
       For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells...

 P.S. Gratefully, I took a good long nap when we got home, and have been fine ever since!