Growing up in Indiana Part Vl – Apple Harvest Time!

One of our favorite things to do when we were kids was to visit one of the local apple orchards in the fall of the year.  Apples were being harvested, cider was being made, and local orchards were very busy with the many customers excited to pick the awesome fruit!  At that time you were allowed to walk or drive through the orchard, and pick your own apples by the bushels full.  You would then go home to a hot kitchen to wash, peel, chop, cook, sieve, and can.  We would make the best applesauce you ever tasted.  It was always so much fun, we didn’t realize how much work it was.  We also would bake the most incredible apple dumplings that you ever put a fork into.  They would melt in your mouth, warm flaky pastry filled with apples, cinnamon, sugar and butter and a sweet cinnamon sauce that was unbelievable!  Amazing aroma’s would rise out of Grandma’s kitchen.  I still have her old wooden bowl that she made the pastry dough in.

We would usually go to the orchard on Saturday morning.  Sometimes it was just Grandma, myself and my two sisters.  Sometimes it was the whole family including all four of my siblings, my parents and grandparents.   It was a family event.  We would take the station wagon back into the orchard.  They would already know what kind of apples they would be picking.  Each cook has her favorite apple to use for certain sauces and pies.  We would usually pick Granny Smith, Jonathan, or Rome Beauty  for pies and baking, Golden Delicious , Granny Smith, and Gravestein for sauce.  The orchard owners would tell us just where to find what we were looking for.  We would look hard for just the right tree.  Ladders were everywhere, to use or we climbed the trees.  Most of the time the branches were low enough that we could pick them right off the trees.  That was the fun part.  The hard part was when we arrived home with four or five bushels of all sorts of apples.  Sometimes we would make a couple of trips because my Grandparents would store the apples in the basement during the winter.  My Grandparents were “old school” so to speak, she baked him a pie every morning.  If you layer the apples between sheets of newspaper, then store them in a cool dry place, they will keep most of the winter or longer.  You can have fresh fruit all winter long.

Another favorite thing to do at the orchard was to taste the amazing apple cider that the orchard owner would make.  They would make it into freezes, or you could get it cold or hot with cinnamon.  There would also be homemade pies that you could buy but we never did, because my Grandmother made the best pies you ever tasted.  It was a great family thing to do that we did…one I will never forget.  I have taken my children to the orchard many times when they were kids and today they are taking their children.  Indiana has hundreds, perhaps thousands of apple orchards.  There is surely one close by to where you live.  I was raised in Richmond, Indiana.  The ones I visited were Dodridge, Doughtrey, or Wesslers Orchards.  All of them were included in this story.  You can type in google search, Richmond, Indiana orchards and it will bring up several with the addresses listed right there.  Take your family to the orchard this fall!  You will be so happy that you did.

I havent been to an orchard for quite a long time.  While writing this story I was reminded of how wholesome an activity walking through an orchard is.  Fresh air, fresh fruit, exercise things we need everyday.  I remembered all the wonderful food that was prepared and the memories that were created.  I am older now,  but you are never too old to enjoy activities like this, in fact I think I might take my boyfriend to Wesslers Orchard, in New Paris Ohio this weekend!

You can find my grandmothers apple dumpling recipe in the recipe section of this site.

This article was written in memory of Grace Rodefer Philhower.  Thank you for those sweet memories Grandma.  I have never forgotten you, and still feel your presence with me today.  I love you always….