Apple Picking Sweet Sixteens

     Fall is my favorite season for all of the obvious reasons: cooler temps, gorgeous leaves, corn mazes, radiantly blue skies, it's my birthday, etc.   But one of the highlights of fall has always been picking apples at Afton Apple Orchard.  When my daughter and nieces were young, we started the tradition and ended up going nearly every year until they graduated from high school.  Girlfriends and boyfriends would join us, as well as my mom, ex-husband, sisters and brother-in-law.
     There's a huge smiling red plywood apple with an eye cut out so our faces could be the "apple's eye" for pics, or the kids could stand next to the gigantic ruler to see how tall they'd gotten since the last visit.  I think this was our last visit before college encroached:

      There's one picture of my daughter and nieces standing next to this 6 foot yellow ruler.  They were in that wonderful middle school stage when makeup and clothes didn't matter yet because getting out of the house fast was the most important goal.  The picture still sits on my dresser.  There's just something so innocent about the girls with their hair pulled back in uncombed ponytails or blown around carelessly, their huge, proud smiles sporting as much silver as the grill on a 1959 Cadillac, funny fitting pants and tops that are too short, long, big or small.  I cherish those years.
     The actual apple picking took maybe 20-30 minutes but what fun teaching the girls how to find the best ones, and of course, reminding them not too eat too many apples while picking. More than once there would be complaints of ailing stomachs on the way back.  I secretly hope that if grand kids start to come along, I can share apple picking with them as well.
     Part of the experience included riding a tractor-pulled wagon full of straw bales that everyone used as seats.  It would pull us around the entire orchard stopping at the Cortlands, the Macintoshes, the Paula Reds, and finally, the Sweet Sixteens, where we would get off.  The secret hint of cherries in this variety made it my fave years ago, and it still is.  As the years went on and the hay bales got too challenging to tackle, my mom stayed home.  Then the girls were in college, so my sisters and I no longer made the annual trip to the orchard.  I continue to go every fall around late September, but I no longer do this:

Instead I choose a beautiful day to drive to Afton Orchard, where I walk directly up to their apple store.  I am completely oblivious to the hay wagon, giant plywood apple and ruler and hundreds of trees bending with the weight of luscious apples.  I open the doors, walk to the shelves marked "Firsts" and find the best bag of already-picked Sweet Sixteens. Then I drive home.

Think I'll eat one of these babies right now.