Great Expectations

As a child, I spent many summer and fall days picking.  Picking cherries, blueberries, elderberries, apples, and whatever else the local Michigan fruit farmers could grow or what was on our own fruit trees.  It seemed to be that Dad was using us as slave labor to bring in pounds and pounds of fruit for winter.  I'm pretty sure one year, on my sister Molly's birthday we picked 100 pounds of tart cherries.  What a great birthday for a 6 year old.

The picking went like this.  Load up the truck with children and buckets.  Drive 5-10 miles to local orchard right up to the fruit trees.  Pick until your hearts content.  Pay by the pound and drive home.

One lousy bag of apple.  This will not feed us all winter.

Husband and his buddy happily picking/eating.

1925 Apple House

This is all I have to fill?  Where are my bushel baskets?

 The Mountains of Georgia offer a different take on apple picking.  I had visions of overflowing bushel baskets that we would bring home for apple sauce making.  This isn't how it went.  Instead, we parked in a busy parking lot.  Bought the smallest plastic bag for $10.  Road on a benched wagon to the trees.  Picked for about 10 minutes and road the wagon back. 
Perhaps I stole a few apples in my camera bag, due to my bitter attitude at being charged $10 for a little bag.  Where is the apple picking experience of my childhood? 

Riding the wagon up to the apples.

How should I feel?  Should I be happy that some farms have found a way to make a profit when so many family farms are failing?  Or do I feel like something so familar has been turned into a Disney like attraction?