more apple picking!

as the title of this post declares, in typical exclamatory fashion!, we picked some more apples today. this time it was back to the orchard where nina's class went for their first field trip. i didn't realize they had more apple trees tucked there in the back, it's actually a pretty big orchard! they still had lots of apples, and best of all, drops were free! that's right, all the apples you can take free from the ground. since it was windy and stormy last night, the drops were very fresh and ripe. i think i got around 10 lbs! made a huge apple crisp this afternoon and will definitely be making some more tomorrow. or maybe applesauce. or maybe just peeling and slicing for the winter. if i wasn't so afraid of botulism, i'd probably be taking up canning right about now. i don't know, maybe next year. if other people can do it, so can i i'm sure... and the idea of homemade pickles is awfully tempting. well see, if the garden yield is better next year (my plan is to go crazy with the compost, the guy at the botanical gardens assures me that good compost is the key), then maybe i'll look into the canning business.

oops, i'm drifting off topic! it's been a while since i've written about the garden though, so a quick update. (erik i know you'll skip this paragraph, news about the girls will continue in the next one.) so let's see, the only thing still growing are the tomatoes, and i'm still getting a dozen or so a week (they're cherry tomatoes remember, so a dozen a week is not very many. especially since they're smaller these days, more like small grapes). i've pulled up the dead plants in most of the space and raked up the beds to keep the weeds out. i harvested the last of the carrots earlier in the week and used them in my chicken noodle soup, and haven't gotten anything else in a while. i was thinking of planting spinach for a fall crop, but i'm kind of feeling done with the gardening thing for a while, so i'm not going to.

ok, the girls: apple picking was very fun! we went with a friend who has 3 little girls of her own (the dad was working so it was nick with 7 women!). poor maggie got quite a scare at the store where they weigh the apples and have cider and whatnot: there was a really big fake spider on top of the cider case (about 1.5 feet across), with big fuzzy legs and big googly eyes, and when maggie saw it she started screaming. i ran over, i thought she'd gotten hurt or something, but she was just scared! i felt so bad! the other mom, melissa, quickly explained that it was fake, and touched it to show her, and then maggie started this kind of frantic, nervous giggle, and said "oh it's fake! it's not a real spider!" but she was still really uncomfortable with it. so i took her outside, and when she wanted to go in to get another cider sample, she decided to just close her eyes.

this reminded nick of the incident at the bronx zoo when they had that cockroach display that freaked maggie out. i guess she just has an inborn bug phobia. just big bugs though, she's never been freaked out by an ant or spider or anything.

later on, and grandma and grandpa's house, nina asked me for her friend charlie's phone number. 'why,' i asked. 'do you want to talk to him?' 'yeah,' said nina. 'i want to invite him over for a hot tub party. and i want to invite james too.'
uh-oh! nick and grandpa are having none of this, i think they're researching all-girls schools and convents as i type, actually. haha!