Apple Armageddon

My daughter is one of those efficient, multi-tasking working mothers with a scrunched up calendar I wrote about in my last post, so it was no surprise to discover that she was arranging a date in late September or early October for apple picking. For close to forty years we have gone to pick bushel baskets of apples in the Fall, originally in Canada with our old friends Andy and Sally and in more recent years with our own family. Problems with Homeland Security and passports have meant that of late our visits have been confined to apple orchards on this side of the border. Food has always been involved—picnic lunches in the orchard and once upon a time dinner at Mother's Pizza in Windsor. If I had done what I should have done with my photos, I could have done a photo progression, but these, taken two or three years ago, give you an idea.

Sitting on the tractor that circles the orchard, stopping at the various kinds of apples.

Plastic bags these days, not bushel baskets.

Additional fun—jumping over bales of hay.

September 25th, that day seemed to meet our needs, be convenient for every one and work perfectly to allow us to celebrate two eleventh birthdays for grandsons, but when my daughter checked the orchard's website, look what she found:

This is unlike any other season we have had in our U-Pick history. Due to early warm weather this spring and subsequent freezing temperatures, there are no apples growing on our trees for you to pick. This is a multi-state problem, so apples are quite scarce this season.
Despite this, we should be able to obtain enough apples so that we can have apple cider available for your enjoyment.
The Cider Mill will still be open with what we are predicting to be a “Bumper Crop” of our delicious donuts, along with our other usual items.

That's a long way to go for cider and donuts. Look at all the apple laden trees in the photos from earlier years. I know it is a minor inconvenience when you look at all the other results of Global Warming—if indeed that's what this is—but the inconvenience is for us, not for the farmers who make their living growing fruit. Let's hope I can send you better photos next year.