HOLDEN – It looked like applesauce already, and very good applesauce at that, but there was Brooke Bowden, pressing it through a strainer into a big dish.

“To take out the seeds and skin,” she explained after checking to make sure that all the applesauce had wound up in the dish.

It was just one of several steps that first-graders in Cherie Roy and Susan Harriman’s classes at Holden School took to get the applesauce ready for Maine Harvest Lunch Day on Sept. 27.

The apples didn’t magically appear at the elementary school, as the children will tell you.

“We went to [Conant’s] apple orchard and picked them,” explained Ethan Hesseltine, a process that should be done carefully.

“Where the flower grows we turned them up toward the sun, and the apple pops right off,” he said.

Fall is the time for picking apples, but, Ryan Warbington emphasized, “even when it’s snowing, the apples do grow.”

All told, the youngster picked two bushels of apples, then brought them back to school for washing before cutting them up into four pieces each.

Cinnamon, sugar and a little bit of water went in with the apples before they were cooked all day long and strained into applesauce.

Soon it was time for the Maine Harvest Lunch, with many more children than usual signing up for hot lunch for the day.

The applesauce wasn’t the only Maine product on the menu, said Principal David Anderson, already in the cafeteria as the children came walking in.

Local vegetables were served with dip made from sour cream donated by Oakhurst Dairy. Garelick Farms provided the milk.

Pumpkins from Murphy Farms became cookies, and Harvest Pizza featured flour from Aurora Mills and Farm and cheese from Harmony Mill Farm.

The day was an opportunity to celebrate Maine farming, as well as to promote healthy choices for the young pupils – and nobody had to be called twice to lunch.

Other first-graders participating in the applesauce project included Cannon Breen, Jagger Cummings, Madison Drake, Madeline Faulkner, Jordan Goodrich, Isabella Gould, Jared Hoxie, Jacob Munroe, Lisa Murphy, Darius Ramos, Emilie Rosenberg, Erin Worth, Kyle Gray, Walker Campbell, Connor West, Justin Blanchard, Caroline Fernald, Jessica Hymas, Andrew Kiley, Alyssa Koch, Michael Legere, Sydney Newcomb, Samuel Peterson, Alexander Twitchell, Abigail Tyler, Adelaide Valley and Preston Weatherbie.