Well, it’s not apple season anymore. I knew that! But as you’ll notice, I’m backtracking a bit with my writing here. That’s cause I wrote this even before having my blog idea! But I think they’re worth a share. On top of it, now in winter there’s not too much out of the ordinary things that happen with me. There’s school and it’s cold outside. It’s sometimes snowing and very often minus 0 degrees which makes me feel even more like doing nothing but staying in bed or drinking hot cocoa. But you don’t want to hear about only THAT! So I kind of like reminiscing and thinking back on the good summer or autumn days I’ve had the past year. So if you don’t mind, here it goes:
“We’re apple-picking this weekend to help out our friends!” Dad announced. Oh boy! I mean, Oh no!!! But it’s our sacred, special, do what we like weekend day. And for once, we get to sleep in. But apple picking starts at 7:45 in the morning. Brother gives enough complaints about it so that I don’t have to add to it. I like to let him be the loud one sometimes, that way Dad and Mom think that it’s not such a big deal for me. He sort of speaks up and complains enough for the both of us. I woke up at 8:15 and I find myself still in bed. That means the apple picking was just in my dream? Not exactly. I found a note that read “We left earlier cause we wanted to let you sleep in a bit. Give us a call when you’re ready and we’ll come pick you up. Love Dad and Mom.”
I should have slept in till 12:00. Though I’ve actually never ever done that in my life yet. Might be on my bucket list one day. Today would have been a good day to start… but too late now. After getting dressed and having breakfast we gave Mom a call. She came to pick us up and we were put to work. Rows and rows of apple trees. Hundreds, no thousands, no probably millions of apples. Only one apple-picking machine and we didn’t get to use it. So they had a tractor shake out all the apples from the trees and we had to get down on our hands and knees to pick them up from the floor, into buckets, then buckets into the tractor and the tractor into the pickup truck. I’d pick up a few apples and then I’d taste one or two. Brother would pick up a few apples and then he’d go complain to Mom that he was done.
But it didn’t help complaining; it didn’t change Mom and Dad’s minds that we were there for helping and serving because that’s what friends do. “We don’t have to help out, but we GET to help out!” Mom said. “It’s a privilege.” I remember when one of my friends helped me out with my homework, it did feel good. I helped her with her drawing and she was so happy. I guess that’s the feeling you get when you do things for others.
Oh, back to the apple picking, Mom finally said that we had to fill up as many buckets as our age and if we complained, we had to do one extra bucket for every complaint. “Sorry for you!” she told me. “You just had your birthday yesterday.” It’s true. I had to pick up one whole bucket more than I would have had to yesterday. But it was still worth it, cause I’m sure they’ll be a whole lot of extra things I’ll get to do now that I’m 11. Come to think of it, I got to ride on a tractor, for the very first time. How’s that for starting my 12th year? I don’t know how many of my friends can say that. So 11 buckets full later, plus, a ride on a tractor, then a yummy meal, a whole bucket of yummy apples that we could take home to enjoy… not too bad for a day helping out friends. I’m realizing that I always receive something in return when I do something for others. And come to think of it, I didn’t hear my brother say another complaint after that. I think he enjoyed the meal best!