"I grew up on a 64-acre apple orchard in rural Ohio. To reveal my origin story to a new acquaintance is inevitably to watch their pupils dilate as they picture bucolic scenes of fruit-laden trees, decorative cornstalks, tractor-pulled hayrides, and caramel-doused apples plunked onto sticks. Orchards, I've come to see, are like catnip to the imaginations of boho-chic suburbanites, TikTokking wanderlusters, and harried parents on the edge of a nervous breakdown."
"What sometimes plays out at my family's orchard on a weekend in October, however, makes unruly passenger incidents on airplanes seem like the stuff of Edwardian garden parties. Consider the Champagne-soused bridezilla who pulled up to our orchard unannounced on a 57-seat passenger bus and rampaged through rows of Pink Lady alongside a retinue of drunken bridesmaids. More common are the helicopter moms who abruptly discover the virtues of free-range parenting as their feral hellions tear the crop from the trees."
"My parents bought their apple orchard in 1989. By elementary school, I was devoting spring weekends to hanging hundreds of bags of human hair on saplings to ward off bud-chomping deer. Ill-timed heavy rains would nullify their effectiveness, so by the time I entered high school, these foul-smelling sacks of tresses were supplanted by hotel-size bars of Dial soap. On other grueling days, I wrapped tree trunks in protective plastic to repel groundhogs."
A 64-acre family apple orchard in rural Ohio attracts nostalgic imaginings but encounters frequent, real-world disruptions. Weekend visitors sometimes arrive in large, intoxicated, or entitled groups that trample rows and damage fruit. Supervised children and poorly managed groups can strip trees and turn harvestable produce into waste. Orchard maintenance demands persistent, low-tech pest and animal deterrents, including hanging human-hair bags, deploying large bars of soap, and wrapping trunks with protective plastic. Weather events such as heavy rains can undermine deterrents and intensify labor. The combination of intrusive visitors, unpredictable weather, and manual crop protection strains orchard livelihoods.
Read at Slate Magazine
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