Effortless apples found at Knowlan Family Farm

When I was a kid in Michigan, one of my favorite things to do after the first frost was pick apples from my great-uncle's farm (that was tradition up there, folks said it made the apples sweeter). It was an old apple orchard full of huge, gnarly trees, and it had been let go for some time. These trees were no longer pruned, no longer protected from bugs, no longer perfect and bearing the optimum amount of fruit. What they were was numerous, and we would drive down the grassy lane between trees looking for a tree or two that had more than its fair share of fruit clinging to the branches. When we found one, my dad would climb it until he got to a smaller branch, then shake the stuffing out of it while we stood back and listened to the apples hit the ground like softball-sized hail. Then we all scrambled, scooping up apples as quickly as we could and throwing them in milk crates, because we were in a race for our prize.

That thunderous sound of apples hitting the ground attracted the normal residents of the old orchard: a large herd of cattle. And once the cows arrived, we split into two groups. Half of us grabbed dead branches from the ground and drove off the cows while the other half kept plucking apples off of the ground. It was pure chaos and wonderful fun, until my dad yelled, "Bull!" That meant that the bull had arrived, and we had to stop chasing the cows, because my dad was concerned that the bull might take offense to that.

We would haul off our milk crates full of apples, and the day had just begun. We would spend all day peeling apples, while Mom made pie crust. Dad would chunk the apples up, and Mom would mix in the sugar, cinnamon, flour and butter, and seal the apples up in their pie dough, then a freezer bag. And us kids just kept on peeling. Endlessly. But we knew that we would have hot apple pies all winter long if we could just keep going. I think we did close to 60 pies on our best harvest.

It was just good times and warm memories that I will hang onto forever. And I felt just a touch of that again at Knowlan Family Farm this weekend. Located at 3243 State Highway 34 in Burfordville, this farm has self-pick apples right now and has had them since mid August. The farm conductor, the one who directs everything and makes sure the timing is just right and happens in near perfect harmony, has planted varieties of apples to ripen from August until the end of October. I almost missed it! But I found out that they have self-pick blueberries in June, and peaches in July, and then all of the kinds of apples.

There were some differences between my childhood orchard and this one. The trees here are small, dwarf varieties, which makes a marvelous amount of sense since people need to be able to reach the apples to pick them. Also, there were no wormy apples, and very few with any odd shapes. It was amazing to see these small trees bearing so much fruit, their branches bending under the weight. But there were some things the same, like those neat rows of trees laden with apples marching off like soldiers in a line.

Inside of the store, I bought some fresh-pressed cider because, ohmygosh, it's so much better than apple juice and tastes like an apple exploded in my mouth. When I asked about good pie apples, the woman working the register recommended mixing a sweeter apple with a tart one, so I ended up picking some tart Pink Ladies and adding in the excellently flavored Mutsu variety that I had never heard of.

And as I effortlessly picked spotless, lovely apples from beautiful little trees, I smiled and wistfully wished that I had some cows to chase off. I mixed up pie dough that day, and it is waiting, two days later, for me to peel apples. I still don't enjoy that task, but the reward is worth the suffering still, I believe.

Now that I know where to go for fresh fruit, grass fed beef and countless dip mixes and spices, Knowlan Family Farm has a fan for life. The farm usually stops the picking soon, so hurry in!