On a sunny afternoon in September, half a dozen people pick apples from two large trees laden with fruit.
The trees are in Jessica Newman’s yard, just north of Boulder, Colorado. One tree stands at least 30 feet high. Jasper, Newman’s 9-year-old son, holds a pole that’s twice as tall as he is, with a small basket on the end.
“There’s this foam thing here, so you use the pointy, like, curved things to pull it down and it just falls into the foam thing, and then you can bring it down,” explained Jasper…