A is for Apple

Fall is creeping in little by little. The leaves are starting to change and everywhere you go places are selling apple cider or pumpkin something. The kids are back in school and schedules have changed. That happens to be the case for my family (I’m talking about the schedule part), and we’re still adjusting.

This Tuesday, with the blessing of good weather, we hit the apple orchard for apple picking. As we did last year, we visited our friends at Red Apple Farm in Phillipton, Massachusetts (for last years visit see: I’m Seeing Red!). With this being our second year picking at Red Apple, we were a little better prepared on all fronts. Again this year we purchased the flat rated 1/2 bushel bag which we could fill and didn’t need to be weighed at the end. A recommendation for parents with small children (or any children for that matter), pick up some of those small recyclable shopping bags for your little pickers. We found that giving the kids each a bag and letting them pick on their own and then dump into our large 1/2 bushel bag we paid for, was easier than them running back to dump their finds. It also saved us from paying by the pound for the apples they picked for their bags.

Both Lex and Loki did very well this year picking. Lex was in search of the “perfect” apple and Loki was focused on us saying “don’t pick from the ground Loki” a hundred times. Both kids got into the spirit of the outing, moving form tree to tree picking and being careful not to hurt the trees. Lex had explained to us he was picking so we could make an apple pie, which we both found odd since he A) doesn’t eat apple pie and B) gags when he eats apples. Loki who loves apples found each pick from the tree as another apple for her belly. She was very cute fighting with those apples that didn’t want to let go of their perch. After filling our bushel we visited the chickens and Loki got to see the Rooster “cock-a-doodle-doo”, which she helped him out with, before the ladies went shopping in the farm stand. The boys took our bounty back to the car and hit the little boy’s room for the trip home.

As a kid I have fond memories of visiting Phantom Farms in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Each fall we would visit for bags of apples (I don’t recall us actually picking, with the exception of the time I went in school), pumpkins for Halloween and of course the fudge sold in their country store. Part of the charm of visiting Red Apple Farm is the amazing farm stand store they have. Loki and I found our 1/2 gallon of Apple Cider and a jar of the farm’s Corn Relish which Mad Dog was coveting when we walked through before picking. I also found some homemade Maple Cotton Candy from Ben’s Sugar Shack  in New Hampshire, which I had to try since I passed it up at the Big E last week. If you haven’t had Maple Cotton Candy – you are missing something, trust me! We also added two of the Farm’s Cider Donuts for the ride home. Once we paid (remember, if you’re going, Red Apple Farm only accepts cash but has an ATM machine on site to help you out if you forget) we hit the road, though we could have hung out all day picking pumpkins, raking up potatoes or picking more apples.