Today is August 6, 2021, and the third day of picking! One of my mom's friends reposted my first nextdoor neighbor post so we were able to reach the Tamalpais area, and within a day we had two replies, and more are still rolling in! We able to go to Mill Valley today, and with my mom's friend's two little sons, went to the houses to pick.
One of my friends who was picking with me yesterday slept over, so we were able to go and donate yesterday's pickings to the distribution center bright and early at 8 AM. She was still... mildly drowsy, but I rolled right out of bed. I've always had a very persistant inner clock that somehow always manages to wake me up a few minutes before my alarm, or in summer, either at 6:43 or 7:18 on the dot. It's become a bit of a guessing game for me when I'm too lazy to check the time, usually based on the amount of light coming through my window.
My mom did our hair this morning because lately she's been getting into that kind of thing. Jessie–my friend on the right–got the special treatment with the fancy updo I had yesterday. And, as it turned out, it happened to be more practical for apple picking, because as neat as mine looks in these photos, as soon as I climbed into a tree it was getting so caught on every tiny little branch I was picking more twigs out than I was picking apples. I had to enlist my mom to help me undo the hairdo because it was so tangled by the end of the first house, which is why my hair is undone and a bit of a mess in any following photos.
We got an early start today because I had a doctor's appointment at three in San Fransisco and we had two houses in Mill Valley to do before then. We met up with my mom's friend and her two sons at the first house, who had a single tree that was so full to bursting we filled eight entire bags! He had the most adorable border collie puppy (I think) named Reyna who would pick the fallen apples off the ground and run around with them. She stole my mask at one point and started a high-difficulty game of keep-away.
This tree was really fun, it was closer to the ground than a lot of the other's we've visited. I ended up spending at least half the time–an hour at least–off the ground. This was where we upgraded our last mentioned team tag strategy. Instead of using the picker as it was made to be used, we turned it into more of a transporter. I'd climb around in the tree, gathering a nest of twigs with my beautifully crafted hair and scratches on my legs that I didn't notice until I got down, pick as many apples as I could carry, and then unload them into the picker's basket, which Jessie would hold up to me. Once full, she'd bring the picker down and dump those apples into a bag. It was actually really effective.
We actually had a lot of fun. It was a lot more eventful with more people, and the two boys did a really great job picking apples with us! Also, we got tea and cookies after the first house that were really good. He made ginger cookies, one with molasses and fresh ginger
that was really really good. We got to relax a little and chat with the owner of the house afterward too!
After both houses we went to my mom's friend's house for homemade pizza. We had finished a little early, so we had some time to kill before lunch. She had a miniature pool table, so we ended up playing a couple rounds of it. One of the young boys absolutely destroyed us, which, to be fair, isn't saying much because neither Jessie nor I are even half-decent at pool. My friend's mom made two kinds of pizza; one with ground beef and the one pictured to the left, pepperoni and basil. They were so good. I once tried making pizza and it was a complete disaster, I have no idea how she did it.
We got so many apples today from both houses it's actually mind-blowing. I'll come back to this post and edit it once I have a definitive weight to log, but I can tell it's probably going to clock around 120 lbs maybe? That at least, if not more. Maybe I should start a guessing game like my wakeup version of russian roulette. I'm saying... 136 lbs.
Edit: I was completely off oh my god. It turned out to be 313 lbs.
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