Fall in New England simply cannot be beat. The brilliance of the trees, the crisp smell in the air, the leaves that crunch under your feet, and the farm-stand bounty at every turn make this my favorite time of year.  Each fall we make the traditional trips to the apple orchard, and then the pumpkin patch, overloading ourselves with produce, emptying our wallets of cash. Completely worth it, when you think of supporting local business and creating happy family memories all in one fell swoop. 

This spring I decided to try my thumb at growing pumpkins, as the vegetable garden of last spring did not turn out as successful as I had hoped.  I have proudly harvested a total of three pumpkins. One fits snugly in the palm of my preschooler’s hand and one is a lopsided rectangle, so I’m beginning to think that growing things is not so much my talent. While out visiting the one decent size pumpkin yesterday, my eye wandered over to the forlorn apple tree in our side yard.  Where we live it is a constant battle to keep the wilds of nature at bay, and this tree was tucked into some overgrown weeds and had never really been given much thought since we moved in three years ago.  Upon inspection I found that although ugly, the apples appeared to be…well….apples, I guess.  Being brave, I mean really, who picks things to eat off trees that have gone un-noticed for years, I scrubbed it off on my jeans and took a tentative bite. Yup. Definitely an apple. An edible apple.  I called Miss Four-Year-Old over and said “start picking”. “Mommy, these apples are NOT beautiful like the apple picking apples.” I assured her, and then myself, that they’d work just fine for applesauce. 

So, inside we went with our half-full canvas bag of ugly apples, where we chopped and boiled and had a lovely conversation about how it’s hard to tell what an apple will look like on the inside from the way it looks on the outside, and how people can be kind of like that too. We talked about how the boiling apples made the kitchen smell good, and how this boiling water made the apples change from hard crunchy things to soft, mushy things.  When I pulled out the antique food mill, she asked me to show her how to turn it on, and was stunned to hear that there was no ‘on’ switch.  “Back in the ‘old’ days”, I found myself explaining, “people had to use their bodies for power. “ She is still working on understanding this concept of pre-electricity. It horrifies her a bit.  She took her turn at working the food mill, but decided that watching was more fun. When the apples were all sauced and she was eating a dish of warm applesauce, she looked at me with shiny eyes and declared me to be awesome. There is nothing more fabulous in the world to hear, than these words coming from the mouth of a sticky preschooler.  Today that applesauce was turned into cake.  And I think we can all agree, that as delicious as fresh applesauce may be, fresh applesauce cake is even tastier.

The whole process made me think about awareness. The process of harvesting the apples,  preparing them  for saucing, and then getting to finally eat the product was an exercise in awareness for my daughter.  That’s the great thing about being small is that you are able to devote all of your senses to learning so easily. As adults, our heads are always working on five or six things at a time, and stopping to smell the roses, or in this case, taste the apples, seems a luxury. For three years, although I knew we had an apple tree (actually we have three), I was never really aware that it produced apples. Sure, I admire the pink and white blooms in the spring, and I drive over the fallen apples with the lawn mower, but to be aware of them enough to make use of them? Nope, not at all. This made me wonder what else might be hiding out there in my yard waiting to be discovered.  After I finish my piece of warm cake, I just might go take a look.