Northern Spy apples

This weekend, which marks Veteran's Day and which for some people features a Monday holiday—not me, unless, of course, you feel that for a semi-retired person, almost every day is a holiday, Monday or otherwise—was supposed to be highlighted by having my granddaughter stay with us. Her parents, who would also be staying, were supposed to bring us a large container of Northern Spy apples, an old-fashioned variety all but unavailable in southern New England but still found in orchards in New Hampshire and other northern spots. Spies, we have discovered over the years, are simply the best pie apples in creation, so when we learned that our New Hampshire crew couldn't make it down for the weekend, we decided to go up and harvest the apples ourselves. It was only a three hour drive and we would get to see our granddaughter. Anything else down here that had to be done simply had to wait. No questions asked.