We returned to the Bel Marin Keys for a family with "way too many apples" and I entirely underestimated how many "way too many" was.
The house was gorgeous, the backyard right on the water with a private dock—though no boat—and there were three apple trees. I didn't panic at first because they were reasonably sized, until I realized these three trees were absolutely loaded. I don't know how or why, but they were positively drowning in fruit. I then realized not only did I not bring enough bags, but I forgot pickers as well. Which meant I took the car all the way back home to grab bags and pickers, then back again.
It was kind of funny, actually. I came back to find apples piled on the lawn from the volunteers that continued while I embarked on my errand. They were clustered so close together that I literally could not see the grass below and that was all from one tree. There were still two trees left when I came back, so I set to work on those while the others finished the first tree and loaded up the bags while taking a well-earned rest.
And guess what? I brought everything that we had—paper bags, boxes, etc—and we STILL ran out. So we transitioned into trashbags.
Yeah.
Great, big, garden trashbags.
As you can see in the pic to the right.
We picked until noon before we were all too tired to continue, and told the kind couple that we can come back next week for the rest. We had to really pack the car to transport everything back it was like playing jigsaw I swear. It was well worth it though, because guess how many pounds we ended up with?
561 lbs. From 1 1/2 of a tree.
FIVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE POUNDS. ALMOST ENTIRELY FROM ONE TREE.
I am speechless, honestly. I have nothing I can say to express how shocked I was when I saw that number on the Foodbank receipt.
All the love,
Carrie