pick your own

apple picking. my wife and i went apple picking yesterday up in the north georgia mountains. they say you can pick through mid-november, but it was apparent to us that all the easy-to-pick apples were already taken and all that was left was the ones way up in the trees dangling at the ends of fragile branches. they had bags of pre-picked apples we could buy, but if i wanted pre-picked apples i could have gone to kroger a mile from my house. so i climbed the trees. i felt like the guy on that show survivorman. the one who climbs trees and eats bugs to survive. i didn't eat any bugs, so maybe i was only half a survivorman, but still. i would climb and pick and then drop them down to katie and she'd bag them. we picked a peck.

today i'm eating the apples we harvested. these apples are sweeter than the ones from kroger, and not just in taste. we harvested them.

but as sweet as they are, i can only dream of how sweet they would be if we sowed them also. then we would truly be tasting the fruit of our labor.

some people sow, some harvest. that's the way it works. i wouldn't be enjoying this apple right now if someone hadn't come before me to do the hard work of sowing.

i know that some people who plant don't get to pick their own, and so we must be grateful, because we do, and not because we did anything to deserve it.