The Apple Antidote to a Covid Autumn

I turned down $50 for this mask

Between us, Betty and I own 14 face masks.  Four of them are of the blue surgical variety and two are wince-worthy, home-made efforts from patterns printed in The New York Times back in March.  Eight, though, were crafted from the best silk ties from my long-ago working days.  These masks were sewn by two home-sheltering college students and look quite professional.  I was even offered fifty dollars for one of them – an authorized replica of the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album – while standing in line at a bakery one recent Sunday morning (I turned down the deal).  

A sign of the times by the back door

The masks, which hang on a rack by the door into our garage, are a continuing, cautionary reminder of the reality that, seven months after we first recognized we had a pandemic on our hands, the out-of-doors are still a place where a dangerous disease lurks and chance encounters on a walk around the block – let alone in supermarkets – are inevitably awkward exercises in you-go-that-way-and-we’ll-go-this-way social distancing.  And, this is in Medfield, a town of 11,000 that had reported fewer than 50 Covid-19 cases as of the end of September.

Every garden has its way to
remind us to social distance

Even trips to gardens, with all their color, texture, and scents; are sobering reminders of the ‘new normal’.  We have enjoyed day-trip sojourns as far away as Maine and as close as the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Gardens at Elm Bank, but every trip has been an exercise in safety: masks must be worn at all times and hand-sanitizing stations are placed wherever you might be required or tempted to handle something. Even with timed tickets to limit crowds, garden paths are the scene of polite pas-de-deux to determine who will backpedal to the nearest cove to let the other party pass with a six-foot buffer.

Ripe Macoun apples

On the last day of September, however, Betty and I made our annual pilgrimage to Doe Orchards, a place un-scarred by the events of 2020.  Each year, when the Macoun apples are ripe, we make at least one near-hundred-mile round trip to this family-owned orchard located on a hilltop outside Route 495 in the rustic town of Harvard, Mass.  There, we fill a large bag with apples and, for quality control purposes, enjoy one or two along the way.  

I wore a mask for this
photo just to prove
it was taken in 2020

The orchard has 15 varieties of apples (each trunk is color-coded) on 60 acres, but we inevitably head directly for the Macouns, an apple with superb taste that is also ideal for cooking.  There were only five cars in the parking lot when we arrived so, as soon as we were out of sight of the farm stand, we shed our masks to enjoy a warm, early autumn day. It was a leisurely exercise: we inspected five trees before we picked our first apple.  I grew up knowing only Red Delicious apples that had withstood withering heat and oppressive humidity on their 600-mile trip from orchards in the mountains of North Carolina to supermarket shelves in tropical Miami.  Betty, on the other hand, grew up in upstate New York’s apple country and has sworn by Macouns for decades.  She inspects each candidate and takes only those that meet her high standard.

The bag will be empty in two weeks

We devoted more than an hour to filling our admittedly large bag and, in the time, saw just one lone, bag-toting picker pass down a path 50 feet distant.  When the winds were right, we also heard voices which turned to be orchard employees picking off ladders seven rows away.

We also just… wandered.  The orchard thoughtfully mows the aisles, so moving from one tree – or variety – is an easy task.  There are also vistas where you can take in the surrounding terrain.  In such a place, and with masks stowed in pockets, it is possible to forget about the world and its troubles for an hour or so.  We certainly did.

Our first Molly O'Neill apple
walnut cake of the season

The apples will become crisps, cobblers, snacks, and a special treat called the Molly O’Neill Upside-Down Apple Walnut Cake.  In a few short weeks, long before they have had an opportunity to soften or lose flavor, our bag of apples will be gone.  But, while they last, they will be a reminder of both a pre-mask path and the hope of a mask-free 2021.