MICHAEL MILLS, AGE 12 - ORONDO, WASHINGTON

It's fun living on an apple orchard. I can eat all of the apples I want, and my mom makes really great apple pies. But, it's not all about eating. My dad works really hard, and he gets up very early.

Sometimes I help my dad change the water. We start at about 6 a.m. First, we shut the irrigation valves that were on all night. Then, we turn on the next set of valves. We walk down the rows of sprinklers and make sure they're all working. If a pipe is broken, we turn the water off, dig up the pipe and fix it. Usually, it takes about 1 1/2 hours to change the water.

I have to go to school during harvest, but I help my dad when I get home. When the tractor drivers bring bins of apples to load on the truck, I make sure that they're all full. I level the tops of the bins so that no apples get smashed when the bins are stacked.

At the end of the day, I get to ride in the truck with my dad. We haul 24 bins of apples to the warehouse on our truck. Each bin weighs about 900 pounds! I only weigh 95 pounds.

When we get to the warehouse, people test our apples and tell us which storage building they will go into. Forklift drivers take the bins off of the truck and put them into the cold rooms. There are millions of apples at the warehouse, and it smells really good.

I'm not sure if it's more fun to eat my mom's apple pie or ride to the warehouse with my dad. Maybe I'll be an apple grower someday.