Beautiful blue skies and a crisp 45 °F or so  made  perfect  apple-picking weather!

It was just under an hour getting there and the route we took was scenic (sort of) through neighboring villages and into the next county. A pleasant drive at least. We arrived about 15 minutes before they opened but the orchard lady didn't seem to mind and motioned us to "get on out of the minivan!"

The orchard itself is small (not at all what either my DH or myself remember as orchards back from our childhoods!) but there was a nice variety of apples to PICK from.   Down at the orchard building there was a beautiful garden  of lots of flowers...

Your standard marigolds. I was very jealous as mine outside my garden at home

haven't bloomed at all this year! LOL

DD  has never been apple picking before (though we'll be going again in a few weeks with her Girl Scout troop!) and she REALLY enjoyed it. She especially liked pulling the wagon with the bushel basket on it (and my coat and camera bag!) I do think she wasn’t expecting the number of BEES in the orchard though. That surprised her. But she was a trooper and only balked a couple times when the bee-fest in a particular location was a bit dense.

View from top of the orchard hill, looking down to the orchard building.

Anyway, per the orchard lady’s instructions we made our way to the back of the orchard (up a hill) before we did any picking. Then, we maneuvered down the hill and between the rows of trees while looking for the various colors of ribbons tied to the trees that were RIPE FOR PICKING. (The orchard lady told us that last weekend some groups of people picked a bunch of apples from trees that weren’t yet marked for picking and would probably be disappointed with their apples since they weren’t quite ripe yet.) We kept our eyes out for white, red, yellow, blue, pink and green ribbons while being careful not to step on any rotting apples with bees surrounding it.

Starting off, heading up hill, DD with cart in tow.

Here are some more just random photos from the outing:

"Which direction should we start?"


Looking cute as usual!



Who's that peeking around the corner? (Yes, it's me. LOL)




"Hey guys! There's a good bunch of apples over here on this tree!"




We tried to pick a full bushel but never quite got there. This photo shows it about 1/4 full. We stopped at just over half-full. The nice orchard lady only charged us for 1/2 a bushel.

At each tree we came to with a "new" ribbon color/name we each took a bite of a sampler apple (we shared as to not be wasteful!) We enjoyed all of the variety of flavors, and all three of us agreed that the Cortlands had the least favorite flavor. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as tasty as the others. Additionally, all the "hoopla" about Honey Crisps... well I personally didn't think they were all that fancy! Again, not bad, but nothing SPECIAL! LOL

"Yummm... this one is nice and crunchy!"

We really enjoyed ourselves! We didn't stay all that long but there wasn't really a need to. Only about the last five minutes of our time there did we see any other people in the orchard so we didn't have to worry about getting in each others way or wagon traffic (LOL) or anything. Truly a great time!

Another flower from the orchard grounds. There was a single giant bee going among all these types of flowers. DH called our attention to it as each time the bee left one flower you could SEE the pollen falling from its legs! It was really neat! We also saw a little chipmunk while standing at these flowers but  I was too slow with the camera to capture him!

I popped into the orchard building while DH paid for our apples. I was hoping to pick up some tasty cider or other apple products, but they didn't have any! *sigh* They had some pears for sale but I passed on those. DD asked about us buying some fresh honey (they're prize-winning!) but I said we already had plenty in the cupboard at home.

On the way home we stopped at a seasonal produce barn to see what they had. I picked up a set of little Indian Corns (already hanging from a shelf in the living room) for this season and some sweet corn for us to eat tomorrow. DH picked up a hot sauce, a black bean salsa, and some apple bread that apparently was calling his name. LOL. DD was intrigued by the turban squash they had on display.

By the time we got to our side of "town" we were all pretty hungry and I decided it would be neat to try the new SWEET TOMATO restaurant over by us! IT WAS WONDERFUL!!!!  We'll definitely be going there again!

Now, back at home, I have a giant bag of apples to deal with. DH is upstairs watching football & golf. DD is outside playing soccer w/ the neighbor kids. It's been a good day!