Apple Picking

We spent almost every weekend in October playing with Nana and Papa, which was lots of fun! One weekend we took the kids out early for the annual fire station open house in Basehor. Joseph had a blast last year, and had been asking when he could go back. We finally discovered it was the second weekend of the month, so we made sure we were available!

That morning Joseph, Daddy, Nana and Papa went down to check out the activities while I stayed behind at the house to let Maddie nap. She wasn't terribly excited about the idea of missing out, but eventually gave up and took a decent nap. I got to spend that time working on my new quiet book pages. (Yes, I managed to whip up a whole new quiet book for Joseph in about a week, mid October! Pictures to come soon)

About the time Maddie was waking up from her nap, the gang headed back from the fire station. We had talked about going to a nearby farm for apple picking, and the weather turned out to be perfect for it. Joseph scored a fluorescent yellow "#7" fire station shirt which came in quite handy for finding him easily out in the orchard!

This year he was really excited about the prospect of picking apples all by himself. I suppose a summer of blueberry, blackberry and a bit of apple picking helped prepare him for the task at hand. Maddie and I hadn't eaten lunch before we left, so she thoroughly enjoyed munching on the big bag of kettle corn I bought for the group. She also managed to start taking bites out of almost every apple Joseph picked and put into a bag near her... We discovered this much later when most of the apples started to rot much faster than they should have!

Cider Hill Orchard was wrapping up their picking season, but the trees still had a decent number of apples available. Most of them, however, were fairly small. We still ended up with 4 completely full bags of little apples before we realized we needed to quit picking!

The apple tree limbs were heavily weighed down, and Joseph loved being able to walk right under and into the trees to pick the low-hanging, little apples off.

Maddie, on the other hand, wanted no part in picking the apples, but instead loved being able to crawl right up under the trees, sit in the dirt, and try to nibble on the apples that had fallen. She was in heaven! And then really angry when we kept taking the rotten apples away from her.

Eventually we made our way back to the "country store" to pay for our haul. We had hoped to pick pumpkins in their pumpkin patch as well, but it was pretty much completely picked out.

I'm glad we made time for this fun apple picking day! We all had lots of fun, and it was great that this particular farm was so close to Jill & Gary's house. I can definitely see going back next year, hopefully a bit earlier in the season when there are larger apples to pick!