One of these days I'm gonna get organizized

A little collage from our apple picking experience at Honey Pot Farms yesterday

Yesterday Heather and I decided to go apple picking.  Is this the true mark of fall?  Maybe, although I am hoping we still have some warm days to come.  In any case, we decided to make the drive to Honey Pot Farms in Stow and enjoy this heralded New England pastime.  I also got to say "How do you like them apples?" 

I'd never been apple picking before.  Growing up on Cape Cod, it was just something you didn't do.  My knowledge of MA geography is so limited because of my Cape Cod frame of reference.  Making more friends in recent years from Central Mass has opened my eyes a little bit, but honestly yesterday was probably the first time I'd ever knowingly been in Stow.  It is very pleasant though; obviously it is an entirely different world from the highway and city roads, but it's also different from what I became used to on Cape Cod.  The trees are bigger, oftentimes creating a canopy over the road, and the landscape in general is more pleasing than endless rows of scrub pines that make up a bulk of Cape Cod.  To all my Cape Cod readers, you know I only knock my hometown out of love.  (And I know you feel the same way)

After consulting the Honey Pot manual, I can confidentally say these are Cortland apples.  

We purchased a 10lb bag which we filled to the brim (I kept one extra one in my breast pocket) with Cortland, Macintosh, some kind of yellow apple, and something else.  The manual I mention above lists all the apples they grow, and practically every description says "good for eating."  

A most triumphant pose, that apple had no idea what we had in store for it

View down the orchard, with the contrast boosted for a truly masterful artistic effect

After we picked our apples, we drove to the other parking lot where there is food, cider, animals, etc.   There were pigs, goats, sheep and chickens.   Standing by the sheep area, a young black guy couldn't stop commenting to me about how covered in waste the sheep was.  "Motherfucker be dropping deuces everywhere."  Heather got an apple cider donut and we went home.  

Here is our pie process in pictures:

We used ten apples, look at that pleasant yellow one, soon to meet the knife.

First, slice and dice with the sword of the lord

Then add an abundance of sugar and cinammon.  We had no nutmeg so we just doubled the cinammon.  I think this was a good choice.

Find a woman who will mix these ingredients

Find a man who will fill the crust 

So far so good

Oops.  We pieced the crust together as best we can.  Industry secret, "H" is the most effective letter to slice into the tops of your pies.

Finished product.  We still have like half a pie left

In Taxi Driver, Robert Deniro has a slice of cheese on his apple pie.  That is so weird, something from another era that must achieve something.  Trying this is on my bucket list. I wrote a new music post a couple nights ago, and have been tweaking it still.  It should be up later tonight.  A new type of post I'm doing where I share great melodic moments in hardcore/punk.  I choose a handful of songs and try to address everything that's going on with them, the way they make me feel or impact me, without coming off too much like some sanctimonious music critic.  Anyway, I'll end this post with a fitting song, "I like you less than apple pie," by early 90s Ebullition Records band Iconoclast.  Very solid jam.  There was an 80s peace punk Iconoclast as well, who have a classic song I will consider for another entry.  Till next time... I just wish you'd all stop talking, cuz you all make such fools of yourself  every time your mouth begins to spew that refuse that you breed as law.