Kids like them apples. Dad pays to pick them

on November 17, 2008 at 5:05 AM, updated November 24, 2008 at 8:05 AM
Migrant workers get paid to pick apples. But parents like me have to pay for the privilege.
Every autumn we drive way out into the country (all things being relative), and pick apples at Melick's Farm in Oldwick.

It's become something of a tradition. And I'm an enormous fan of tradition. However, this one leaves me scratching my head. How come we pay money to do something that many people, often migrant laborers with no formal schooling, do for work?

I wonder what they'd charge me if I asked to rake their leaves? Or how much per pound of dung I'd have to pay to muck the stalls in their barn?

I wouldn't want to do any of those things. Yet somehow I'm willing to pay for the "privilege" of hoofing it out into the orchards and picking many pounds of apples and lugging it back to the parking lot.

I'm not sure why the kids love it, but they do, as is evidenced by the enormous quantity of apples they pick. I have 3 kids, and each will pick more than a bushel (and promptly hand over to me and my wife to haul back.)

I would make them carry the apples themselves, but that would prevent me from hiding two thirds of them before we get to the farmstand scales, where I get walloped with a bill that totals what I spend annually on all other fruits combined.

And, honestly, what to do with 30 pounds of apples? Will the kids eat ANY of these apples? I've never seen them.

Thankfully I like apples and there are a host of things you can cook with apples - applesauce, apple fritters, apple cobbler, apple pie and many many more. It helps take some of the monotony out of the weeks following apple picking day.

Also, over the years I've come to find other uses for these apples after my wife and I reach full saturation. For instance I sometimes hollow them out, carve faces in them and put candles inside for some quaint-looking and very seasonal "App-o-Lanterns.''

I've also constructed a weapon that hurls rotting fruit projectiles at devious children who think they're going to toilet paper the trees in front of my house on the night before Halloween: the Cat-Apple-pult.

How do you like THEM apples?

Eric Ruhalter, who lives in Morristown, recently published his book "The KidDictionary: A Book Of Words Parents Need But Don't Have.'' To check it out, visit or contact him at