random thoughts – Day 2,425 (Saturday 11/7) – labor and leisure

Pumpkins and gourds.

It’s been raining for several days. The day’s plan included apple picking, decided mid-week when the temperature was in the high 60s and 70s. The rain, which was just a light drizzle by then, did not get in the way of the orchard labor. 

A driver hauling a wagon took us past fields with pallets of pumpkins and gourds and beyond the now empty pumpkin patch, to the picking trees. From the wagon stop, it was a short walk to the Pink Lady apples that my friend wanted.

There were plenty of low hanging apples, but there were also ladders nearby so of course, I climbed once or twice. There were a couple lessons learned. For one, there are a lot more varieties of apples than I ever imagined. Snapdragon? Mutsu? Empire? Until now, my apple familiarity has been largely limited to the grocery store offerings of Granny Smith and McIntosh.  

Apple trees and a tempting ladder.

Another lesson involved my jacket, which was warm enough for the weather, but not exactly waterproof. The sleeve of my left picking arm got all wet, then my pant legs were wet from wiping my hands on them in an attempt to dry them. My hair became bushy with waves and frizz from the wet air and I felt like a tumbleweed by the time we were done. It was fun. All of it.

On the way home, we passed a store emblazoned with a sign that read “EC Thrift.” This was not a store with which we were familiar, which felt like all the more reason to go in. Wow, what a store. It is large, clean, and well organized. Prices on a lot of the housewares seemed insanely inflated ($79.99 for kitchen knives in a thrift store?) but the clothing prices were reasonable. Even though I didn’t find an Irish knit sweater (my current thrift holy grail), the store was still the cherry on top of an already great day.