It’s been a strange fall season as we head into mid-October.
As of this writing our valley has yet to be touched with frost. Making it past Oct. 1 without a frost used to be a rarity but is now becoming more common. Instead of unpacking fall sweaters and turning on the furnace, the summer-like weather has extended the shorts and short-sleeve shirts wardrobe and kept the switch set to air conditioning.
Even the fall colors seem to be later this year, but since the color change is based on decreased sunlight and not on the weather, it may be more perception than reality. Weather can change the vibrancy of certain colors, but the sun’s march south is the same.
While farmers are busy harvesting the fields, we are finishing up the garden harvest. I finally dug the potatoes, which is harder than it sounds. It is my annual payment for my sin of procrastination.
It’s a classic avalanche of broken promises. Every year I tell myself that I will not let the garden get overtaken by weeds. I then plant the potatoes and say that I am going to dig many early so we can enjoy fresh fingerlings. Then after the weeds take over, I pronounce that I am going to dig the potatoes before the vines shrivel and disappear into the weeds.
So of course at the end of the growing season I have to guess where the rows and hills of potatoes are within the lush mat of weeds, making it twice as hard to locate and dig. My wife Sherry had done some preliminary excavating but wisely let me pay penance for my potato procrastination. It was not a pleasant task, but I’m pleased to pronounce a preponderance of potatoes packed away.
Later that day we harvested some apples from the trees planted in our yard. When I was young we’d always pick from the many wild trees scattered around the farm, especially from a hilltop spot at the edge of the field that was aptly called “The Orchard” by my father. There were about a dozen trees there that survived until the early 1980s. I was never sure if they were planted or if they grew wild.
Helping with the harvest was our son Ross and our 6-year-old grandson Samuel. Ross and my father used to pick apples tog
ether every fall – a tradition they kept every year until Dad passed in 2020. Now the next generation of apple enthusiasts has joined.
Samuel took his turn wielding the apple picker and helped gather and sort. Two trees had taken sabbaticals this year with little to no fruit while others had branches that were heavy laden. The deer had already taken their share and many of the apples had been nibbled on by birds. But those can be carefully trimmed and sent through the apple press for fresh cider.
We harvested what we could reach and took turns with the picker for the apples higher up the branches. We then shook the trees to gather a few more that we couldn’t reach. It should be a job done with a hardhat, but a Newton-like experience for me does little damage.
It was a gorgeous afternoon under bright blue skies. Some clouds rolled in and it started to sprinkle while the sun was still shining.
“There must be a rainbow somewhere,” I told Samuel, reciting something that I heard from my grandfather decades ago whenever it rained and shined simultaneously.
I looked at the skies and to the east was a beautiful rainbow, with the faint shadow of a second bow.
“There it is,” I said. Samuel laughed and squealed with pure delight and joy that fills your heart.
“Let’s take a picture,” I said.
We didn’t search for the pot of gold because the treasure was right before us.
And somewhere from the great beyond, Dad had decided to join another apple harvest.