This post is really earnest — the kind of earnest that might be embarrassing for everyone. Like when people read bad poetry aloud.

* * *

For all the things I've said on this blog, there is one thing I have managed not to mention. It happened for the first time back in July. I didn't know what to make of it then, but I was pretty sure that writing about it would send the blog rocketing over the shark. Now here we are at the end of the season. I never did figure out quite how to handle it, but I'm pretty sure that now it's OK to write about:

I sometimes think that everyone who reads the blog has come up and said something nice to me at the markets. That's the only way to square the readership figures with the number of people who have taken the time to seek me out and say something kind.

Those comments really made my day. Sometimes my week.

One Sunday it happened in front of two guys I was working with, who knew nothing about the blog until that moment. They got a huge kick out of watching me squirm in embarrassment at being outed and complimented at the same time. In that instance and perhaps in others, in the midst of my squirming, I'm afraid I may not have been able to get across how great it was to hear those things. So thank you. It was really great.

The same goes for the emails, which — let's be honest — have not been so numerous that I couldn't respond to them all personally to say thank you. But, just the same, thanks again. It's really great when people take the time to write a note.

If you linked to the blog or facebooked it? Hugely encouraging. Thank you.

If you commented? Really satisfying. Thanks.

Some of you chose to suffer in silence and that's fine too. That's probably what I'd do. Thanks for reading.

Now I have a few nice things of my own to say.

Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Stu. And thank you, Nick. All of my friends have been encouraging beyond measure but you three have had to listen to me talk about the blog far more than any three people on earth, and far more than you deserved. If someone tried to talk to me about his blog, I would be tempted to stab him with a pencil. Thank you for not stabbing me with a pencil.

There is one more person to thank, even if I don't know quite what to say.

Pete, you've been really great about letting me do the blog, trusting me to write about my job, about the farm and about you — all of it without checking up on me. Thank you. This is Fruit Slinger. I guess you're allowed to read it now. I hope I did OK by you. I hope you laughed. I hope you liked it.

* * *

All right. So here's the thing: I have kicked around the idea of doing another blog. But it's hard to imagine loving another blog like I love this one. Any blog I started now would be a rebound blog; I'm afraid it wouldn't mean as much to me and I'd just end up kicking it to the curb.

I'm not ruling out doing something like this again — maybe another season of Fruit Slinger , maybe something else — but I just can't say right now. If you keep the blog in your feed or join the facebook group, you'll know what happens if it happens.

You know, I wrote most of this entry months ago, when the days were long and peaches were just off the trees. I figured that would give me time to come up with the perfect way to put the blog to bed.

But now I realize that there may be nothing better than simply saying that this is the end.

And it is.

At least for now.

I'm packing up my canning supplies. That might sound like a prelude to a trip in a Conestoga wagon, but really it's just that I threw together some apple butter the other day . . . . and now I think that's it. I thought about making applesauce, but do I eat applesauce? No, I do not eat applesauce.

Although, I don't really eat that much jam either and the 7 half-pints and 1 pint of apple butter join 7 half-pints of blackberry jam, 3 half-pints of blackberry preserves, 6 half-pints of peach jam, 3 half-pints of apricot butter, 4 pints of peaches in light syrup, 5 half-pints of apricot preserves, 6 half-pints of strawberry preserves, 2 half-pints of cherry preserves, 5 half-pints of blueberry jam, 5 half-pints of blueberry syrup, 3 half-pints of black raspberry preserves, 2 quarts and 1 pint of blackberries in their own juice, 3 quarts of raspberries in light syrup, 1 quart and 2 pints of black raspberries in light syrup, 2 pints of peach preserves and 1 half-pint of pear butter.

Not to mention the stuff I turned into booze.

I know, I know. You're looking at the list and wondering why there isn't more.

It's because I've already given a few jars away.

Now that it's November, we're down to just the twice-weekly Green City Market, which has moved from Lincoln Park to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

Saturday was the first day in the new location.

Among the usual parade of Saturday customers, I saw people who had been coming to other markets and made the trek to this one, now that the other markets have wrapped up.

I also saw a lot of new faces. There are those who like to divide their spending among the various farms, but a lot of people also pick one farm and stick with it. On Saturday, we were practically the only fruit game in town because a few of the other orchards have dropped out and one took the day off. So we got a lot of new people filing through.

I was in a great mood on that particular day, so they probably don't know what they're in for if they come back.

* * *

I spend a lot of my time at the market answering questions — mostly about fruit.

But with the change of venue and the new set up, we were right up against a vegetable stand.

So I got a lot of vegetable questions directed to my back.

"I've never seen purple carrots."

I turned around to face an older woman.

"Can you tell me about them?" She had a faint British accent.

"Um. I sell fruit, but my understanding is that carrots were bred to be orange by the Dutch and that they come in all kinds of colors."

She seemed amused and satisfied by the answer. I turned around and went back to selling apples.

Then there was another question.

"Excuse me, can you tell me what this is?"

"Um. I sell fruit. But . . . give me a second. The name is on the tip of my tongue. Oh, right! I'm pretty sure it's kolhrabi."

They nodded and I turned back around until they shouted back, "You were right! Kohlrabi! Here's the sign."

If this fruit thing doesn't work out, it's good to know I have a fallback career selling vegetables.

* * *

On Sunday — the first Sunday without a market — I had the guys I'd been working the Sunday market with over for waffles. I made buttermilk waffles with a bit of cornmeal in the batter and served them with apple butter (the spillover from my canning bender the night before) and maple butter.

To make the maple butter, I took unsalted butter, whipped it until creamy with the electric beaters, and incorporated some Grade B maple syrup.

Grade B maple syrup sounds like something that would be doled out with government cheese, but in fact is graded thusly because it has MORE maple flavor. That's right. Apparently, maple flavor in maple syrup is considered a defect and syrups with a more uncomplicated sweetness are awarded higher grades.

Don't worry. I'm already writing daily nastygrams to the Maple Council. And shaking my fist in the air. And . . . buying Grade B maple syrup.

I used unsalted butter because I wanted to add kosher salt to the mixture. The thicker flakes provide crunchy, salty little bursts.

It was as good on the waffles that morning as it was on the squash that night.

* * *

"I would like seven Red Delicious, please."

"We don't have Red Delicious."

"Well, why don't you have them anymore? Are they out of season? Last year they were around for a while!"

She was a little upset and while I wanted to sympathize with her, I couldn't. And when I say that, what I mean is that I didn't want to.

There is a very good reason we don't have any Red Delicious but I couldn't quite bring myself to tell her. I did offer a partial explanation.

"Well. . . I mean, we sold about seven of them a day. On the days you came."

For a while, we kept bringing Red Delicious because, you know, we have them. (What are we going to do, chop the trees down?) And we had plenty of space at the market and it was the height of apple season and it was nice to say we had 16 kinds of apples, even if one of them was Red Delicious.

But now that we've changed locations and have a bit less space, we've trimmed our inventory slightly. And it was an easy decision to stop bringing the Red Delicious.

"Well, do you have anything like a Red Delicious?"

That would be a hell of a thing to say about an apple.

I wanted to say, "Oh, good GOD no!" But instead I shook my head.

She stood there quietly, almost expectantly. But there wasn't much I could do for her.

I moved on to another customer. She shuffled away defeated.

I told Peter we had upset a customer by failing to bring the Red Delicious.

"Did you tell her you were the one who decided that we shouldn't bring them?"

"No . . . but I told her that she was the only one who ever bought them."

By the way, we have enough HoneyCrisp left to last us about a week, maybe a week and a half.

For Halloween, I dressed up as a real person: I slipped into some slacks, laced my shiny shoes, buttoned up a shirt, and knotted a tie.

I went for a job interview. Afterward, I took myself out for coffee at Julius Meinl. They are a good customer of the farm and some of the people there know me. The woman at the front of the restaurant was happy to see me. I said hello to her. She stared at me for a moment.

"Wait. Where is it I know you from?"

"From the farmers market. It's just that I'm coming from a job interview, so. . ." I flipped up my tie and she laughed.

Honestly, when I looked in the mirror this morning, I barely knew me.

* * *

Mado changes its menu constantly but if you were to go soon, I bet you'd find many of the same dishes that added up to a fantastic meal last night: onion soup with cheddar croutons; house-made wild boar sausage; house-cured anchovies (sardines?) topped with radish and preserved lemon; roasted brussels sprouts with house-made bacon; risotto with roasted lamb and rosemary; a maple-pear tart, and rice pudding topped off with raspberries and almonds.

There's a 2005 Tomero Malbec available at Sam's down the road that costs $15 and tastes like you paid at least twice as much.

Enjoy.

With so many things in life — say, my time in Argentina and, arguably, this blog — I value quitting while I'm ahead.

I was in such a good mood at today's last outdoor Green City Market.

So I left early.

* * *

The more I write about the blog itself, instead of using the blog to write about other things, the closer it comes to imploding from the weight of its own self-importance.

That said. . . I did not intend to overstate the intimacy of my relationship with dignity. You're talking about a guy who spends half the summer running around in dirty jeans and a t-shirt that reads "delicious."

Dignity and I have met, but I wouldn't say we're close.

Also, everyone has figured out that writing about Fruit Slinger is a good way to get me to link to your blog, right? It doesn't hurt if I've known you half my life. Thanks, Jeff.

* * *

Is $4 a lot to pay for a half-gallon of pear cider? I mean. . . I don't know. Maybe it is.

What would be a fair price for pear cider? Three dollars for a half-gallon? Two dollars? Should we give it away?

It is pear cider, for god's sake. Are there that many places you can find it, let alone find it for $4? If you don't want to buy it, then don't buy it. It's not something that's essential for life.

It's not like we're charging for air.

You wonder how many bottles of water that guy has bought in his lifetime.

Maybe he has a pear cider tap at home?

But that seems like something he would have mentioned.

I'm telling you right now, this one is not as detailed or as interesting as the last one. But there are more pictures.

Wednesday

3.30 Out of bed! Good morning, world! Good morning, thoughts running through my head! Good morning, absolute blackness of night!

3.45 Out the door. It's fricking freezing. It couldn't get any colder than it is now, right? Still, an abundance of caution prompted me to purchase gloves and a hat the night before — just in case it's somehow this cold again any time in the next six months or so.

4.20 Arrive at Green City Market. FIRST VENDOR THERE! YES! IN YOUR FACE! [NAME OF FARM] RULES!!!!!

Sorry. I got a little carried away there.

Do you like how I've never named the farm once on this blog? Back in the spring, when I was trying to pitch the idea of doing a blog sort of like this to some larger food web sites, I got a few responses back that indicated they weren't interested in a blog that would essentially be shilling for a farm. Fair enough. I tried to get them to understand that that wasn't at all what I'd be doing. But I guess the logical question that follows is, "Then why would you be doing the blog?"

Six months later and that question still hangs in the air.

4.25 I start unloading the truck. I decide that with the threat of rain, I will put tents up, even though they block whatever sunlight might show through and make it that much colder. Also, tents are heavy and I am lazy, so this is not a decision I make lightly.

5.00 Tamera from the stand across the way shows up at the truck door to find me alone unloading crates. "Peter has you working like a dog, huh?"

"Haha. Yeah."

"Listen, we're going to go park the truck and get some coffee. Do you want something?"

"Wow, that's really nice of you. I'll take a small black coffee, please. Thank you!"

The Sunday before she had seen me shivering at the Wicker Park market and insisted on getting a vest from her truck for me.

Today, I try to give her a few bucks for the coffee and she declines. Later that morning, I make sure she and her husband get a few cups of hot cider from our stand. Her husband, a pretty quiet guy, makes a point of telling me it hit the spot.

7.00 - 13.30 Eh, you know. It's a market. People buy their HoneyCrisps. I talk to Joe at the cheese stand.

I decide that, if I'm going to wear Peter's hat today, I'm going to wear Peter's hat today. Some people stare at me quizzically. Some people ask, "Is Peter here today?" at which point I am allowed — compelled! — to answer: "No, but I'm wearing his hat today."

This, in case you have not already reached this conclusion, is hilarious.

At the time.

To me.


I chat with Peter on the phone quickly before he leaves for Italy. Really, it's a pretty slow day. Wednesday traffic has tanked. We actually end up with unsold HoneyCrisps.

13.30 Pack up truck.

14.00 Pull out of the market.

14.45 Arrive home. I have about 45 minutes to myself! What shall I do? Every minute I spend thinking about this is a minute I can't spend sleeping. I read and answer email for 15 minutes or so.

15.00-15.45 Listen to podcast and take a nap.

15.45 When it was still warm outside — in July probably, or maybe August — someone asked Peter if he could attend a fundraising event. He said he might be out of town, but that I could do it. "Really?" I asked. "You'd let me represent the orchard?" Fast forward a few months. It's cold. I'm tired. And . . . I'm going to the event!

[16.00 I tried to set up a coffee date with this guy who works at the market. It didn't take. But this is when it would have been. I look at my phone, see the time and roll my eyes. I feel like I kind of got the cold shoulder after weeks of encouraging signs. Anyway, he can't blame me for trying, can he? Eh. Maybe he can't. But I sort of do. It gets old.]

17.00 The fundraiser is about an hour's train ride away. Chefs from local restaurants have been paired with farms and are serving small plates to patrons. I have been told that there will be pizza and beer for me before the event.

I ask where the beer is.

"It's in the cooler. But be judicious! It's going to be a long night."

Not if I leave early, it's not.

I have a beer. I had arrived early for set-up. This turns out to be me standing behind a small table in front of a stove for 45 minutes or so before the guests arrive. I make small talk. This is not one of my gifts.

The sign in front of the table has Peter's name on it. A few people know Peter and say, "You're not Peter." Sigh. No. No, I'm not.

As I've said before, Peter is Peter.

On a good day, I'm "it's nice to see you, too."

I talk up the orchard and explain to people what they are tasting. Since there is no sign indicating what we're serving, I say the words "cider-braised short ribs with cheddar grits, topped off with watercress, pears and applewood smoked cheddar" approximately 7000 times.


There are a few people I know from the markets, which is nice to see. Some of them take a moment to recognize me in clean clothes.

Talking and being nice gets a little tiring. Two nights before, I had done a cider tasting at a small grocery store in town, meaning I was the face of the farm. The face of the farm had to smile for nearly two hours. What if it had frozen like that?

Don't worry. It didn't.

20.30 I judge when I can make my exit and scramble home.

22.00 Good night, world. Good night, thoughts running through my head. Good night, absolute blackness of night.

Thursday

10.00 Farmward ho! I should have been on the road hours ago, but I just couldn't bear to get up early enough to beat the traffic. Getting on the road at this hour means it will be about 2.30pm Michigan time by the time I end up at the farm. The better part of the day will be spent going from Point A to Point B.

13.30 I greet Lupe. He has to finish up some cider mill work before he gets to packing the van. I go into the farmhouse to do some paperwork, check my email and browse the Web a bit.

15.45 Lupe comes into the farmhouse. He sees my MacBook on the floor.

"Is that a computer?"

"Yes."

"Are they expensive?"

"Well, you can spend as much or as little as you like. It's like a lot of things. Cars. Clothes."

"Yeah."

He takes a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. "Do you know what this is?" Scrawled on the paper are the specs of a desktop computer.

"My niece wants me to bring her an HP computer."

"Oh? The niece I met before?" She had visited over the summer.

"Yes. I don't know what she's studying but she says she needs a computer and wants me to get it here."

"Won't it be hard to get it back to Mexico?"

"No, I'll just put it in my truck."

"Don't you have a lot of other stuff to go with you?"

"No, not too much."

"What about your canning?"

"Well, I have one case of peaches, one of plums . . . "

I make a note to myself to give Lupe a jar of jam.

16.00 You can read about this in the entry below.

17.00 Leave farm for drive back to city.

20.30 Dinner with friends. I had told them not to wait for me, because I didn't think I'd be home in time. But I walk through the door while they're still at the table and they hesitate not one bit in setting a place for me. I'm lucky to have great friends and I'm reminded of this all the time.

Friday

7.00 Run over to van to hand keys to Josh so he can make restaurant deliveries.

11.00 Deliveries are finished and I take the van to Michigan.

15.00 Stop at South Haven, Mich., Wal-Mart. When I am here, I feel like I am on Mars. Good prices on long underwear, though.

16.00 Arrive at farm. Lupe and I go over the packing list for the truck.


17.00 One of the farm workers — Rodrigo — is going back to Mexico. He always calls me amigo. He comes to the house and we settle some loose ends. I wish him well and say good luck.

Lupe had told me Rodrigo was going to leave the next day. Five minutes later Rodrigo's pick-up rumbles past the house. He honks and waves goodbye.

He's gone.

What must Southwestern Michigan look like to someone from Sinaloa, Mexico? What must he tell people about the things and places and people he's known when he's north of the border? Or maybe he doesn't talk much about it at all. Maybe he doesn't think about it much. Maybe he prefers to live where he is at the moment.

It's been a long time since I've been very good at that.

19.00 I have a glass of wine and a quick dinner. Apples and peanut butter? No. I wish! Some really bad clam chowder from a can.

20.00 Off to bed. Morning comes early and sleep comes easily.

Saturday

1.45 It is so disorienting to wake up here. I always panic at first. Like, what if, addled by exhaustion, I hadn't calculated the time difference between the farm and the city correctly? And I woke up an hour too late? AND THEN PEOPLE DIDN'T GET THEIR FRUIT?

2.00 On the road again.

4.30 I'm not the first vendor here. But I'm the only one from our farm. So I unload most of the truck myself. At the risk of sounding like a martyr, surely no one has ever suffered more.

As I nearly empty the truck, two guys show up. I am very, very crabby. The market manager helps me lug the coolers full of cider off the truck, even though this is not even remotely his job. He just wants to move things along.

7.00 Last outdoor Saturday Green City Market opens for business. After this, we move indoors to the nature museum down the road. Mostly I'm tired and — I'll admit it — not super, super interested in selling fruit at this particular moment, so my mind wanders quite a bit. I think about all the things that have happened at this market this summer. All the people who have filed through. All the hard work and good fruit.

Now I look around and see only apples. The season is winding down. This blog is too, by the way. Lately I've been reminded of the value of closure. Sometimes it's what you least want, but what you most need. Also, I'd rather wrap up the blog with some dignity — before it has to be taken out back and shot.

10.00 A very famous chef stops by to pick up some cider. I cannot understand a damn thing he says. Hees accent — eet ees so theek! He's very nice to me, though. I ask him, as I often ask chefs when they buy from us, what he plans to do with the cider. He is happy to relay his plan to me. I understand about half of it.

13.30 Market is over.

Today was the last Wicker Park market. Tomorrow I go to Michigan. Tuesday is the last Lincoln Square market. Wednesday is the last outdoor Green City Market.

Yesterday while Lupe was loading the van I grabbed a shipping box and ran out to the apple trees. Now, as I've said, normally I only pick what I eat.

But this time I picked apples for my mom.

Front to back: Golden Supreme, Golden Russet, Senshu, Jonagold.

I ran back to the van and called out to Lupe.

"¿Está todo? No parece tanto, la verdad." ("Is that everything? It doesn't really look like much.")

"Sí, está todo." He went over the packing list with me.

I was wearing dirty jeans, the sweatshirt I had worn the day before, and a ski cap. Lupe was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and a baseball cap that read "Jesus is my boss."

"¡Hasta mañana!"

"Hasta luego."

On the way back to the city, it started to rain. It's supposed to rain most of this weekend.

I just re-read Peter's itinerary. He's getting back a day later than I thought he was.

Ugh.

Being Peter isn't leaving me time for blogging. Being Peter isn't leaving me time for anything.

Please do not tell me about your three-day cleansing diet, wherein you eat only apples, and how that is why you need to purchase the large basket of apples.

Please do not tell me about that.

* * *

Please do not play tonsil hockey in front of the fruit stand. I know you are so in love that you cannot wait to demonstrate your affection for each other. But demonstrate it to each other, not to me.

Seriously, I am trying to eat an apple here.

* * *

It's going to be a long time before I make another apple pie.

In the end, isn't there value in knowing what you do well and focusing on that? Like, I'm pretty good at selling fruit. And I bet you if I thought about it, I could come up with something else I'm good at.

* * *

"Are your apples organic?"

"No, they're not. But we use some organic sprays and we spray as little as possible."

"Oh."

I could tell she was disappointed, and — let me be clear — I am not unsympathetic to this.

She stared at the apples. I broke the silence: "There is a guy at this market who does have a few types of organic apples, but I think he's only here on Wednesdays."

"Oh, yeah."

By now she was picking through a quart of Mutsu apples. Mutsus are large, green and fairly tart, not unlike a Granny Smith.

"But these are not organic?"

"That's right."

She had asked again because she thought that I'd change my answer? That she'd break me down and get me to admit that they were organic after all, and that I just couldn't bear to tell her the truth the first time around?

She spent a long time fondling and carefully considering the apples.

"If you take any longer to decide about those apples, they'll be out of season by the time you pull the trigger," I said to myself.

In my head, I am hilarious.

"I guess I'll take this basket," she said.

She examined them one by one as she put them into the bag.

"But I don't want this one," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because it's got those little spots on it."

Gaw! "That's because we don't spray very much!" I was half-shouting. I held the apple up to her. "Good Lord, you of all people should appreciate that!"

She laughed. "Yeah, I know." She paused. "But can I switch it out?"

"Sure. There's nothing wrong with that apple, but switch it out. That's fine."

She switched it out. I took her money. She collected her change.

Now, you might think that my half-screaming at her would have sent her scurrying away. In fact, no. It's remarkable what you can say — or half-scream — as long as you're smiling. This is surely the only reason I've lasted in this job as long as I have. That and the free fruit.

Apples in hand, she stayed to tell me about how she remembered picking Mutsus back in the day. I listened politely, just as I listen politely — and frequently with genuine interest — to everybody's stories about apples, apple-picking, apple pies, baked apples, apple trees. . . everything from A to Zestar!™.

I really have no interest in selling you a bad apple. We go through them all before we put them out and make an effort to set aside the imperfect ones. (Often, this means that they're only cosmetically imperfect.) If you saw how many thousands upon thousands of apples there are at the orchard, you would understand that we have no motive to send you home with a bad one. It doesn't even make sense. So, really, take the apples that make you happy. But there can be trade offs between growing practices and appearances, and you should consider what's more important to you.

That is why, in this case, I had to call her on it.

Some people need to be given a hard time. I feel like I'm pretty good at identifying those people.

Oh, see? I knew there was something else I was good at.

Call it a gift.

Don't you think that, in a way, everyone who entered the pie contest is a winner?

Of course, in another way, I didn't even make the first cut.