Picking Apples

Delicious apples from our garden!

Last year at this time, my dear husband brought buckets and buckets of apples into the house for me to process. Even the teeny, tiny, one-inch-wide ones. He saw them on the tree, they were (thankfully) ripe, so he picked them for me.

I was slightly aggravated that he thought I could take care of them all at once like that on top of my other duties, which, on that particular day, included my job (I was still working then). I had already picked the ones I planned to use for the first batch, and leaving some on the tree for a couple of days wasn't going to hurt anything.

Today, a Facebook post reminded me that the apples might be ready, so I went out to check on the tree. Sure enough, beautiful, juicy Gravensteins teased me from the upper limbs. I got a box and a short stepladder, and I started picking as my dear husband looked on distractedly or wandered around the garden. Up and down the ladder I went, depositing the apples in the box.

As I graduated to a taller ladder, he asked if he could help. Climbing up a shaky ladder is probably not the best idea for him (or for me, come to think of it), so I started handing the picked fruit down to him, asking him to place it in the box for me. This he mostly did, when he wasn't distracted or bringing apples back to me or putting them in his pockets or wandering off.

This is a small, not-very-significant thing, I know. But it's a demonstration of a couple of things: First, be thankful in all things. For instance, in retrospect, I should have been thankful last year when he picked apples on his own. Second, life can change dramatically in a very short time. In some cases, instantly. Live each day as it comes. See the first thing. Repeat.