Apple festival, the sequel

This weekend was Apple Festival up at Lutherock. We had a good time as always---just getting out of the weekend grind of errands and to-do lists is refreshing, not to mention driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway, hiking up and down trails through woods changing colors, meeting new people and old friends.

Here are some highlights:

• Luke turns out to be incredibly afraid of fire, including fire in fireplaces. This was a problem this weekend, since the temperature in the morning was around 40 degrees, (although it got up to about 65 degrees during the day). When Michael lit a fire in the fireplace of the lodge where we were staying, Luke stood screaming at the door to the outside 3 rooms away, "I go out! I go out! Fire hot! It burns! Don't touch!" After about 20 minutes, he was able to sit in daddy's lap in the same room as the fire, but he was clearly still worried. I guess he got the message about fire, but perhaps I should have moderated it a bit.
  
• We did not take him to campfire, but I did take the girls. It rated as their most favorite part of Apple Festival, even though at the end Amanda fell off the bench she was walking on and couldn't stop crying for about 10 minutes. They did the skit with the "Swami" who tells fortunes by smelling shoes. Eleanor was the first to jump up and stick her shoe in the hands of the assistant---the swami predicted a beauty parlor in her future. Eleanor confided to the girl sitting next to her that she was planning on opening up a beauty parlor when she gets older... first I've heard of it.
• We listened to audio books on the way up and back: Ramona and her Mother, and Akimbo and the Crocodile Man. I really enjoyed Ramona and her Mother, even though Ramona is excruciatingly annoying at times. I often found myself thinking, "I've had this conversation with Eleanor!" Akimbo and the Crocodile Man is one of a series of books for children written by Alexander McCall Smith, the author of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency books. The two we have listened to so far (also Akimbo and the Elephants) are excellent.
• There were many apples up at Lutherock this year. The counselors climb up into the wild apple trees scattered around the property, shake the trees and apples rain down. Everybody else's job is to gather up the good apples and put them in baskets. I think we filled probably 12-15 bushels of apples off just 4 trees, not to mention the apples that weren't in good enough shape even to make into cider. They have an old fashioned cider press which the counselors and kids kept running all day, and which gave us delicious cider for supper and breakfast the next day. Anyone who had an apple recipe could make something in the kitchen, so we had pies, crisp and sauce. It was a very good haul.
  
• A few of the adults had official hiking poles. The kids all decided they needed walking sticks too. Amanda found a few beauties over the weekend, most of which were taller than she was. Luke found some too, but his were mostly thin and twiggy---not really useful, but if he dropped them he became very sad. The older kids of course discovered that they were great play weapons, and knocked a few heads. This was a bigger problem when the knocked heads were on the younger kids.
• Eleanor read Magic or Not? by Edward Eager and Little House on Boston Bay, about Charlotte, Laura Ingalls Wilder's grandmother. She did not read Dancing Shoes, by Noel Streatfeild, because the beginning where their mother dies is too sad. She read instead of listening to the first part of the audio book we got, and when she wanted to start a travel game with us, she got distracted within 30 seconds of starting the game, and could not be roused from her book to take her turn.
  

As usual, there is much more to be written, but not much more time to write. You're all invited to come down next year.