Picking A Peck Of Perfect Apples

It’s time for the annual trip to the apple orchard!  It turns out after we bought our (somewhat expensive) bag for apples and took the ride out to the orchard on the wagon…

…that’s when the guy driving the tractor apologized for not having a very good crop this year. 

“And they told you up front about how we’re really picked over, right?” he said. 

Um, NO! He went on to remind us that it’s all about the experience and having fun with the kids, which couldn’t be more true.  If we didn’t love coming back, we would buy them in the store, right?

Well, it turns out the spring frost did a number on the trees and the yield wasn’t that great.  We happened to go during the Apple Picking Festival this year and even by then, he said there was only one section of, what?, a dozen or so types, left to pick from.  So, that’s where we started. (Sorry, don’t remember what we ended up getting) 

And after putting a couple of those in our bag, we decided to keep walking to other sections to see what we could find.  We didn’t get far before finding out Tractor Guy wasn’t joking.  These were the only good apples left.  Thank goodness for taste testing because I bit into another type of apple to find it mushy and lacking flavor.  We emptied those out of our bag and headed back to where we were having luck to stock up.

Noah even found a couple twins… check out the double picker in his hand.

So, I love this next picture because it’s so deceiving.  It’s a cute little boy standing among an orchard of apple trees, right? 

NOPE!  This is a little boy, days from being two-years-old, throwing a fit, pouting, refusing to look at his mother because she took away the stick he hit her in the face with.  Oh, sorry, did I say hit? I mean WHIPPED in the face with.  Little stinker - he’s lucky those curls have a built in defense mechanism.  It was likely more of an accident.  Either way, the stick had to go!

Punky just kept to herself and filled her tummy with apples. 

Then it was back to the dirt road to wait for Tractor Guy again to come pick us up.  We didn’t bring the stroller this year so there was no way we were hoofin’ it back to the front of the property with a broken bag and two toddlers.  It was time to simply relax and enjoy the beautiful September weather… and the view.

Tractor Guy did come and we didn’t have to wait nearly as long as year’s past (remember that one year we decided to walk until we saw the tractor, made it all the way back to the parking lot and I went into labor a few days later? hehehe Good times).  (Carissa, scroll slowly past these pictures.  The next blog post has the picture of the really big spider you love.  Wouldn’t want you to pee your pants again from seeing it.)

The ride back was just enough time to grab a couple more quick shots, including a self portrait of me and Noah, and take a few more bites from our apples before getting all cleaned up.  Then it was time to grab lunch, head home for naps and make some applesauce.