Falling for Apples

Red Apple Farm smells of wood smoke, manure and freshly-pressed apples. Families and the occasional college student traipse from farm to orchard clutching eight-foot apple pickers.

"Here, take a picker, there aren't many apples left down low," says the worker handing out buckets and pickers--modified broomsticks with baskets to catch the apples--to the occasional harvester.

According to a chart distributed by the farm, MacIntosh apples ripen by Sept. 1. Fallen and discarded apples crunched underfoot by last weekend.

"Apples like cold weather," says farmer William E. Rose. "A couple of weeks ago when we had hot weather the apples were dropping, just falling out of the tree."

Founded in 1732, Red Apple Farm grows 36 apple varieties according to Rose, who is the third-generation owner of the Phillipston, Mass., farm.

"I like to call myself a caretaker," Rose says, adding that his son is now studying agriculture at Cornell University and will likely return to run the farm.

"We'll get another generation around here," Rose says.

After he returned home from a stint in Peru teaching entomology on a Fulbright scholarship, Rose earned a Ph.D. in forestry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"I'm fluent in Spanish and I have all these degrees, but I came back to the farm," Rose says. "I've worked all over the world, and it's pretty hard to beat New England."

The Autumn Bounty

Red Apple Farm presses its own apples into sweet cider and hard cider. The sweet apple scent drifts through the chill air in the wooden barn that serves as factory, bakery and shop.

Customers can take home jams, jellies and spreads, and freshly-baked apple dumplings, pies and cider donuts. A sign in the barn advertises "everlasting bouquets"--dried flower bunches that hang from the rafters. A collection of cider bottles from around the world lines one of the barn's wooden beams.

"I know to get people here you have to retain the old farm image," Rose says.

"They're not just coming for the apples. They're coming for the fall, for New England."

The Buchanan family, from Westminster, Mass., makes an annual visit to Red Apple Farm. Fifteen-month-old Bridgette M. Buchanan tasted her first apple at the farm last year. This year, she graduated to a roasted ear of corn.

Her mother, Lisa K. Buchanan, says her daughter had a funny look on her face after the inaugural bite.

"When you think about it, it's the true original temptation," says Bridgette's father Neal P. Buchanan, explaining his original marketing concept. "You know, like Adam and Eve."

The Buchanan's children enjoy the yearly romp and the search for the perfect apple-bearing tree.

"They also like to make the things afterward," Lisa Buchanan says, adding that apple pie will follow the picking expedition.

Though there will be goodies at Red Apple Farm until Christmas, 1998 was a tough year for the apple crop.

"The biggest problem this year was rain during apple blossom time," Rose says. "The bees couldn't work."

Despite the rain, which was followed by a draught in July, the apples that survived are colorful and crispy, which Rose attributes to the farm's soil and 1,250-foot elevation.

Rose knows he cannot rely on a bumper crop to keep the farm in business.

"The farm is just very difficult, economically, to make it," Rose says. "We don't make much of a profit, but we pay the bills."

Horn of Plenty

To make up for the poor season, Rose markets the farm's other activities.

"I'm always looking for attractions," Rose says, pointing to a distant field where several barrels rest on legs among wooden posts.

Two years ago, several artists from Boston asked Rose if they could have his scrap metal. He gladly turned it over and suggested that they display some sculptures on his walking trail, which formerly led to a beaver dam.

He put the sculptures on the forest trail so people could find them easily, but said not many visitors show much interest. He hopes the curiosity makes them leave a little happier.

"When you look at it you don't know what it is, but you imagine, you invent what it is. People kind of wonder," Rose says.

He engages the artists, even making suggestions about the displays.

"It looked like aliens," Rose says of the barrels. "Then I said `Why are you putting those posts in!'"

But the artists did not listen, and now, according to Rose, the "aliens" look like they are walking on their own land.

Items of interest are scattered across the farm, among the sheep, cows, "Black Forest Maze" and haunted cemetery.

A wooden cart rests at the foot of the driveway. With wheels made of mesquite wood, it is heavy and old.

"I brought it up from Mexico on my pickup truck and assembled it," Rose says.

When he went to Mexico on a grant to research insects while a U. Mass. undergraduate, Rose found the oxcart, which was built more than 150 years ago. He brought it north to a new home and Red Apple Farm gained another attraction.

Rose described managing a family farm as the challenge of his life.

"You need good people to help you in this kind of business," he says.

Rose hires local teenagers to harvest the apples. He knows their names and hobbies, running a tight shop.

"I tell them to apply wherever they want for college. Isn't that right?" he says.

Ron T. Kamel, of Fitchburg, Mass., on cooks hamburgers and roasted corn at the farm's outdoor barbecue pit. He sautees in cider the medley of apples, tomatoes, onions and zucchini that tops the burgers.

"We sold out of burgers!" Kamel shouts to Rose at about 4 p.m. "You going to remember to go to the store tonight?"

To visit the farm and taste Kamel's special sauce, take Route 2 to Exit 19 and follow the signs to Red Apple Farm. For seasonal news, visit the farm's Web site at www.redapplefarm.com.

There are still plenty of Red Delicious and Empire apples. Both have slightly mushy meat, versus the MacIntosh's crispness. Juice bursts from all the freshly-picked apples when teeth break through the skin. The juice seems to disappear the farther the apples go from the orchard.