The Apples of Autumn

I can feel the autumn in the air every morning as I go out to feed the horses and chickens. It is just getting light at their feeding time and though there has yet to be a frost I know it isn’t far behind.

It occurs to me that apples are symbolic of autumn. There is that apple smell that seems to drift for miles on cool September mornings. We lost all of our apple trees in the storm but someone upwind from my house has some.

It was in September when we would be drawn farm stands when I was growing up. There they were selling what remained of the summer harvest. Corn and beans were less prominent at the stands and they had been replaced by squash, pumpkins and apples. The really good farm stands were selling jellies, jams and honey. If it was a really good stand they sold cider as well.

One of my favorite apple memories was when I was in my twenties and I spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks every fall. I would stop in the apple growing community of Chasey, New York and pick up a quarter bushel and then I’d head over to a spot on the Saranac River and set up camp where I would fish for trout. I would live for days on the apples and the fish I caught.

Apples go a long way as the building blocks of my fond autumn memories.