Yesterday's blog about picking up apples brought back memories for at least a couple readers and that's always nice. Today I was thinking about how we used to take a picnic and spend a whole Sunday picking apples on the "Roy Lot" also known as "the Gray Place," when I was a kid.  That was when my Grandfather McAllan was living with us (my mother's dad) and often one of mother's sisters would come with her family - the Sanborns, the Bassetts or the Storys - from Barre, and we'd make a day of it.  There were lots of apple trees there then and I suppose some of them may still exist, but as far as I know the trees were never taken care of so they probably died out.  Everyone would go home with bushels of fruit.  I'm sure those Scotch ladies made very good use of them, just as my mother always did.  Nothing was ever wasted.

I remember also going to those same fields with my cousins and friends for corn roasts.  It was a good hike from the farm, but such a lovely spot with wide open fields beyond the foundations - the farmhouse on the south side of the Bayley-Hazen Military Road and the barn on the north side - we didn't mind.  There were plenty of flat field stones to use for a fire pit, and I remember the smell and taste of that roasted corn so well.  We carried salt and butter with us, but not much else, as I recall.  Corn never tasted better.  Then we'd put apples on the end of a stick and roast them the same as we did marshmallows.  Hot applesauce flavored with smoke.  Occasionally some of the adults would come along, but they weren't as willing to stumble through the darkness of the overgrown old road as we were.  My cousins Herb and Harold McNeely and I knew every rut and puddle, every jutting rock and fallen tree on that old road from driving the cows along there all summer long.  Usually by the time we were having corn roasts, the cows were no longer being pastured - my grandfather would let them into the fields nearer the farm buildings on nice days and kept them in the stable on frosty nights - so we kids didn't have to make the long daily trek to the Roy Lot to get the cows each afternoon. Therefore, going there for apples or a corn roast was an adventure rather than a chore.

I remember how the heat of the fire warmed our faces, but our  arms, legs and backs got cold and damp as the frosty night air descended on us.  The long hike back up the hill to the farm warmed us up, and it was then we'd begin telling stories about wildcats and bears and other forest creatures with the intention of scaring anyone with us visiting from the city.  There was always a bright moon and the shadows along the old road were dark and menacing. It didn't take much imagination to see something moving up ahead or to glance over your shoulder and catch a glimpse of some movement in the woods or something darting out of sight behind you.  We forgot about being chilly and tended to the business of getting through the dark woods and into the open fields at the top of the hill as quickly as possible.  I'm sure had I not had impressionable or younger kids with me I'd have been just as afraid as they were.  Sometimes the older cousins would turn the tables on me and have me almost convinced there was something following us through the woods.  I was pretty confident that making all the noise we did, no self-respecting wild animal would be within miles of us. though.  After getting back to the farm, I had to go the short distance from the there to our house alone, though, and I remember the chill of fright through my neck and shoulders when I thought I saw something moving in the darkness - and then I'd race down the road feeling like I was flying, heart pounding, until I reached the security of the porch at our house; but nobody ever knew.