Out on a Limb

I've managed to make it a whole six months between postings! I know - you're shocked. There really is SO much that goes on that trying to chronicle everything is nearly impossible! My back-to-school resolution is to actually keep up with the running commentary on the frenzied activity that is my life in Moscow.

Last weekend, I had the memorable opportunity to venture to Kolomenskoye, a gorgeous park & nature preserve settled on a bend in the Moscow River. The grounds of the park house everything from Peter the Great's hunting lodge to the Bell Tower of St. George. With several churches and a recently restored cathedral, the whole place has taken on a rather sacred air.

At the top of the park, close to the entrance, sit a lovely, manicured orchard. It's lovely to look at, and many people choose to take a carriage ride under the short trees. At the opposite side of the park, down the hill and across a ravine, lies another not-so-manicured orchard, whose trees are a little taller. It was to this secluded, not-so-well preserved preserve that my friend & I ventured last Saturday. We had one goal in mind - to pick apples.

I'm not much of a nature nut. Oh, the occasional ramble through the woods and the picnics by a lake are great, but if I had to hunt & gather for my daily rations, I'd soon be in serious trouble. This was confirmed not once, but several times as I attempted to climb a tree in pursuit of fruit. As I was half-way up, I realized that I had suddenly developed a fear of heights. Okay, so maybe it wasn't so much a fear of heights as it was a fear of falling from them...

I managed to collect about a dozen lovely, red apples when I started to lose my footing. The shoes I'd chosen for the day were great for walking & hiking hills, but pretty much worthless for maneuvering about apple trees. Still, I was determined to get to the cluster of beautiful, rosy apples dangling just above my head. I changed the position of my feet & pushed upward.

My fingers closed over the largest apple of the bunch, and I tugged gently to snap it from its stem. As I deftly detached it from its branch, the four or five other apples which I had not been aiming for, but which had shared a common limb, came tumbling down about my ears and on to the hard ground below. There was something about hearing the apples smack the ground that made me think perhaps I should remove myself from the tree, lest I encountered the same squished fate.

Back once more on solid ground, I proposed that my friend (who is much more adroit in climbing trees) should venture up among the branches, and that I would stay behind and "catch" the apples she would toss down to me. This plan worked great for about five minutes, until I missed a toss. After that, I became more of a bruise buffer, as the apples bounced off of me before landing in the grass.

All in all, the two of us managed to collect 4 packets (think plastic grocery bags) of apples. I'm not really sure exactly how many kilos or pounds worth of fruit this really was, but I know that a week later, I've made applesauce, apple cobbler (twice), apple cake and caramel apples and I still have at least a dozen apples to spare!