Dadnamics Live! Episode 21 Apple Race

I’ve heard the experts tout family traditions as an essential. Giving your kids something to look forward to every year or several times per year is a huge win in the “lasting memories” box. If you really think about it, you’ll realize that many of your fondest childhood memories were around a family tradition.

Our family didn’t necessarily have a master plan to this essential. We just found events that we all loved and locked them down as traditions. One of our favorites is the local apple orchard. Each farm contains rows and rows of seemingly endless assortments of apple trees. That’s the reason for going because we haul off 40 to 80 pounds of freshly-picked New York apples. OMG! They are succulent, especially the Jonagolds and the Fujis. They literally squirt when you bite into them! And yes, I did actually mean 40 to 80 lbs! This year, we may hit 100.

If the apple-picking and the creativity of your kids trying to find and pick the best ones isn’t enough to lock in the tradition, here’s a few more selling points:

  1. 40 to 80 lbs of “Grocery Store, U Can’t Touch ‘Dis” apples.
  2. Apple Cider Donuts – Not fair at all. They make them right there in their kitchen and sell from a side window. If you go during a weekend, the lines may literally be 45 minutes for donuts (Psssst. Do it anyway. Totally worth it.)
  3. Horse rides and hay rides
  4. Feeding farm animals – We like the goats and roosters.
  5. Gift shop and cafe – You can buy apple cider, local farm produce, raw honey, trinkets, and such.

The weather for Episode 21 was spectacular, but getting the apples was even better. If you get there early in the season, the ripe apples are just dangling right there for the plucking. But if you wait until October like we sometimes do, you have to scavenge a bit more. Inevitably, we capture the shot of one of my kids hoisted high upon my shoulders to reach the clusters of ripe apples. This is fun, tiring, and dangerous, all at the same time. The fun and the tiring are obvious. Are you wondering about the dangerous? Dads, can you picture the scene of your child hoisted high in the air, locking up both of your arms? That bundle of joy ALWAYS grabs one too many apples, causing the whole cluster to free fall. Although your child is victorious with one shiny red apple in his hand, the rest are dented, bruised, and lying on the ground after they bombed you like a B-52.

These are the types of cute stories and memories that we hang onto as we strive to make the next year better than the last. That’s the power of the tradition. Once you get there, it’s like you never left a year ago and you step right back into the stories. It’s fantastic.

At this point, I’m taking a wild guess that I’ve totally sold you on the concept of the family tradition and choosing apple-picking as one of your first. You get it. But why did we do a race? That’s where Dadnamics came in. Let me explain. We found a new apple orchard two years ago that’s literally two blocks away. The apples are phenomenal and well-priced, but they don’t have all of the bells and whistles that I mentioned earlier. You can get the donuts and visit the shop, but it’s not the same. As a family, we’ve been apple-picking every fall for 10 years. Each year has been a memorable event (as I’ve explained already). But last year, we went strictly for the apples. It was still tradition, but it wasn’t the same. I needed to jazz up the experience so we’d have something to remember.

I decided on a race like in episode 1, but a much longer distance. Each row between the trees was long and straight, approximately the length of a football field, and slightly uphill. I set the starter blocks for a fair race by placing myself at the back line. Then I put the 10-year-old at the 15 yard line, the 7-year-old at the 30, and the 4-year-old at the 45. Before dropping the flag, I admired the view. A long, straight grass race course spread a hundred yards in front of me. The outline of the bespeckled red and green trees created beautiful symmetry below the baby blue autumn sky. My three older kids were evenly-spaced in front of me with their leads. The late September air cooled my skin at the same time as the sun warmed it. The smell of apples tickled my olfactory. I lead in the race countdown. “On the count of three. One, two, … tha-rrrrreeeeeee! Go!

Immediately, every sound drowned away. Chariots of Fire amplified into my brain’s mp3 player. The racers in front of me seemed to be in slow motion as my mind “cleared the mechanism”. I passed the 4 and then 7-year-old, but ran out of real estate. My 10-year-old won and the old guy was breathless at the finish line.

It was a great race and a fine bookmark to place on this decade-long tradition. You can bet that the apple race will be a part of this year’s visit.


What traditions does your family have?

Published by

Ken Carfagno

Along his journey from artist to engineer to entrepreneur, Ken Carfagno became a dad. And like many new dads, his kids inspired a long-forgotten gift. Ken could make up stories and draw his kids into them. This sparked a dream that lead to Dadnamics, the infusion of creativity, adventure, and silliness into dad time. And it lead to the Arctic Land experience.