To the Orchard

In mid October, our homeschooling group headed up to the mountains to pick apples!  This was our families first time at this particular orchard and it was well worth the two hour drive.  Not only was it beautiful, but very family friendly with lots to see and do besides pick apples.  We were the first family to arrive so we decided to try out the fresh made pumpkin and apple donhuts while waiting for everyone else.  I can't attest to how they tasted (I cannot eat gluten or dairy), but seeing as they were devoured in about two minutes, I would venture to say they were good ;-)

 The view was amazing and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.  The leaves weren't quite at peek color, but gorgeous just the same.  While it was a bit windy and chilly at the top of the orchard, down where we picked, it was perfect.  We had to hike a bit to the back of the orchard to find the varieties that were ripe and ready for picking, but we had that section all to ourselves (yay!).

  The kids filled the baskets fairly quickly and I am positive they would have picked about 5 or 6 bushels if we let them.  After the picking was done, they played among the trees and we had a nice picnic in the orchard.

They also had a small farm animal area which was a highlight for Kenna.  While she enjoyed looking at the sheep and the goats, the ducks were her favorite (this girl loves her birds!).  The big kids were off playing in the bamboo forest and we wandered back and forth between the ducks and the goats for a bit before it was time to head on home.  We enjoyed our time so much, I think this will be a new fall tradition for our family.  All in all, we brought home a bushel and a half of apples and not one of them made it into a pie, cobbler or sauce!  I am pretty sure MaKenna and Parker have eaten about 3-4 apples a day since we picked them and I think we have enough left to make one measly jar of sauce, that is if they don't get to them first.