Tag: Fall Autumn

  • The Apples Were Picked

    My family went apple picking this weekend. My daughter even brought a friend, so we had an extra person to help enjoy our Autumnal Tradition. And there was a hay ride (Actually, no hay was involved, but no one cared) and a core maze, a pumpkin patch, and apple cider donuts. There were food trucks as well, but those don’t interest me.

    What interests me is putting on a flannel shirt on a warm Fall morning, and sweating too much, as I stomp and trip over rotten apples on the ground, looking for that one unplundered Golden Delicious apple tree that’s hidden way in the back of the orchard. And I also enjoy eating an apple a day for the next month, and wonder at the benefits of my increased fiber intake!

    I was rather excited to be there

    The whole thing is cheesy and cliched, and I love it so much! As the kid and her friend were running around the corn maze, I told the wife that I know that we won’t be doing this forever with the kid. She’ll either outgrow it, or move away. But, I would like to still come out and do this; walk around the orchards, watching the families and their little ones enjoy the fifteen to twenty minutes of pleasure they all get picking fruit from a tree.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Apple Picking, I Like Teams that Frustrate Me, and Halloween Costumes

    (By Mennen!)

    It’s Fall, which means apple picking. This is the one stupid Autumn tradition we have that I cannot quit. It’s… it’s just dumb. We go to a farm and pay the farmer to go out and harvest his crop for him. It feels like such a con, but damn do I love doing it. And we do take it too seriously. We’ll get up at the crack of dawn and drive way out to a farm in upstate New York, so we can be the first people there. And we’re gun’na buy a pumpkin too, maybe pickles as well, because I think we did that last time. The dog will be with us, and we’ll wander around the orchard, picking, then sampling apples, and if they don’t meet our standards, we’ll toss the half-eaten fruit on the ground, like some inconsiderate Patrician. Then for a week afterward, we’ll find a way to work apples into every meal. But the wife will make a really great apple pie, so that does make it worth it. It is a little bit of a cliché thing to do, but aren’t stupid traditions the ones we love the most?

    Oh, I sure know how to pick sports teams that end up confounding and frustrating me. I will say this, Tottenham accomplished the bare minimum in their Champions League Group match against Frankfurt – They didn’t lose. At the half way point in the group stage matches, Spurs are in second place with four points, so they are not out of the woods, and could still blow this. And that is the thing with this team – they still don’t seem to have found their groove. The Kane/Son duo still hasn’t shown up this season, and I think without that threat up front, it gives opponents the confidence to try added pressure against Tottenham’s back line, especially in the final ten minutes. And this Saturday will be another test against upstart Brighton, who is in fourth place behind Tottenham in the Premiere League. With only a month left to go before the World Cup break in November, Conte has to get this club into some cohesive championship form. The goal this season wasn’t to just be good, it was to win trophies.

    And, I spent two hours this morning searching and ordering a Hermione Granger costume for my daughter. Not that tie and robes boarding school stuff, no sir! She wants a very specific version of Hermione from a certain scene from a movie. I didn’t mean to, but I think I am teaching my daughter how to Cosplay.

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