First in the Helping Dad series

My father was the head of the household. He was an honest man, steadfast in his faith in God. He worked harder than any person I know. His days were typically 11 or 12 hours and more when it was a busy season. It was physical work. for the most part. Daily chores and seasonal tasks needed a strong back and loads of stamina. Owning a dairy meant that the farmer and his family were bonded with it. There are no days off and no skipped milkings in the dairy barn.

My father did not expect us as children to work like as adult. We were expected to do what we could. Small privately owned farms are called family farms for a reason. When called upon to do something more than our daily chores we had one excuse or protest or another. We were kids, after all, and what kid gets up and works without some whining?. We knew that refusal would have consequences, a worse task later perhaps. We tended to stop mouthing after a few minutes of “Poor me!” Dad worked through sickness and injury, so our excuses sounded sort of weak. We trusted that Dad needed our help and would keep us from harm whatever he had us do.

A few times really stick out in my memory. There is one when I got my feelings hurt, a couple when the tasks seemed a little harder or less safe. And one when the job was routine and Dad had unique way of managing it. The first one is set in the apple orchard.

Picking apples, Dad’s way

Mom and Dad’s farm had a small orchard of heirloom variety apple trees, about 16 trees in all. They grew in two lines on the ridge of ground in the center of the field in front of the house. The trees were about 20 feet tall with a diameter of about 20 feet. They were nice-looking trees with rounded crowns in vivid green. In the spring they were covered with white blooms. If the breeze was coming from the right direction, you could smell the blossoms while you sat under the maple trees in the side yard next to the house.

The family who owned the farm before Mom and Dad knew some things about the orchard, but not how old it was. Mom knew the type of apple for most of them. The trees were mature when we moved to the farm and they gave us apples for years and years.

One tree was a June apple tree; its fruit ripened in early summer. Those apples were pale green, thin-skinned, quick to turn bad, and not good to eat, but they made the best applesauce ever. It was worth the effort it took. The containers of frozen applesauce were like precious gems stored in the freezer! Applesauce requires so many apples that the end product was always limited, to our thinking as kids. I liked it best when it was still semi-frozen. Sweet and tart, it was smooth as sorbet.

Each autumn we picked up apples that dropped to the ground, going back at least once a day because fallen apples rot quickly. We picked apples from the trees too, using step ladders to get the ones on the outside branches. Some years the tree hung heavy with fruit, clusters of apples hanging just out of reach. The tree branches hung low one year, so full that Mom and Dad feared the branches would break before the apples ripened. That autumn I won’t forget helping Dad in the orchard.

Our chore for that week was apples, picking up from the ground, picking from the trees, then helping Mom clean, peel, and freeze them. One day Dad carried a straight ladder to the orchard, not a step ladder. It was about eight feet long. I asked if he planned to climb the ladder to reach the higher apples on the inside branches. “No,” he said. “You are.”

I didn’t think that it was a good idea, but Dad thought it was. I asked how I was going to do that, being short with short arms. In answer, Dad picked up the ladder and threw it into the tree. He tested it by bouncing and shaking it and announced it was fine. He said he would hold it for me as I climbed up and picked apples.

My legs were a little weak when I climbed up the first couple of rungs., I was not a brave kid anyway. The branches creaked and popped and the ladder angled off to the right. “Dad?”, I called with a little catch in my voice. “Come down,” Dad replied. I was on the third rung and issues were already occurring. I got down faster than I went up by a magnitude. I was so happy to be back on solid ground and relieved that the ladder experiment was over.

Dad picked the ladder up and carried it around the tree. That made me nervous, perhaps I was not done. He chose his spot and threw the ladder. Then he stood back and made a motion with his hand for me to climb up.

In that second, I pictured myself after a fall, ladder pieces scattered around a lifeless, broken body. So young, so small and so cute. What a waste for a few apples; what a tragedy for the family! Dad interrupted the daydream. “Come on, I ain’t standing here holding this all day”.

I slowly climbed up, each motion causing the tree to make a noise like before. The ladder held, but I needed Dad to hold it steady. The ladder would not have stayed in place on the ground. I got as high as I dared and Dad said one more step. So I went higher. I held on with my left hand and picked with my right, dropping the apples to my Mom and younger sister. I was not letting go to hold a basket!

I climbed down after picking the apples I could reach. Coming down was worse than going up. I could not see my feet or the ladder rungs, which is normal for a ladder descent, of course. The tree cracked and popped. The noise was louder, it seemed to me. The ladder swayed some as I backed down. Dad coached me as I felt with each foot for the next rung. Finally, back on the ground, I realized that I would be going up and down the ladder many times that afternoon.

Dad picked up the ladder and looked for the next place to throw it. When I finished picking apples, I scrambled up and down the ladder like a squirrel. I used both hands when the ladder felt solid, putting apples in baskets and handing the baskets down.

Dad was right that nothing bad would happen to me in the orchard. I hope you are relieved that this was a happy, simple ending instead of a dramatic, painful one. I will take happiness over pain every time.

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