Falling for Apples

Dropping outdoor temperatures marks the arrival of Fall, and trumpets the highly-anticipated start of the apple-picking season.

There is truly something magical stepping through an apple orchard during the crisp morning hours.  The earth wakes from its dewy slumber. The branches extend their silent welcome. The air dense with an aroma of delightful serendipity.

Colors pop and paintings burst into life as one meanders amongst the never-ending zigzags of apple trees.

High and low, the apples grow. From the skinny young sprigs to the stately old timers, all the trees are laden with plump apples ripe for the picking.

My personal favorites are the Honeycrisps. Nestled snugly among the leaves, the flavor and texture of these delectable apples are precisely what the name suggests — sweet and crunchy.

The once-empty bag now filled to the brim, I haul my load into the car and drive back down the gravel path to the farmhouse.

En route, it dawned upon me that the grassy green field had before been a picturesque patch dotted with orange.

Even as my mind rushed to recall when it was that I had last seen the pumpkins, there was no denying the reality of changing times and agricultural decline unfolding in front of me. I suppose there just wasn’t enough manpower or revenues to justify keeping alive the pumpkin field where, every autumn, people had gone in search of that perfect specimen to carve out for Halloween.