Thursday, October 17, 2013

The 12 Days of Camping - Apple Picking!

For
YEARS
I have wanted to go apple picking.
It sounds like so much fun!
But we have never 
had the opportunity,
nor taken the opportunity.

So while we are in the mountain area of NC
in mid-late August,
we took advantage of the 
ALMOST 
there apple season

and 
WENT APPLE PICKING!

I was THRILLED 
that we had the opportunity.

It was not planned
and somewhat of a last 
minute idea.
And I am 
ever so thankful
that the hubs decided that he was ok with 
spending one of his
actual vacation days
taking me and the kids
apple picking.

I found a place called 
close by
and
that had some apples ready.

They gave us a basket for our apples,
a couple of containers for our blackberries
and
a wagon...

And away we went!


The basket of apples had to share their wagon
space with Mr. T.


Which I am sure was by design,
because he sat right there
and 
ate 
apple
after
apple!



Jackson was tickled by how tiny the apples were 
that we were picking.


Everyone took turns 
pulling the cart too!



Thankfully,
they told us to sample them
as we were going through
to make sure we were happy with the flavors 
we were picking...


They were juicy!
But tasty!!


We finally got Mr. T to contribute to the 
picking
and not just the eating!


 He even took a turn pulling 
the cart for us.


Once we filled up our apple basket,
we headed over to the rows of
blackberry bushes.

Caught daddy eating a couple of those!


And Mr. T
mercy!
This kid put away some blackberries!!!


So did Lex!


They thought that the object was
for us to pick them
and fill up their containers.

Tony was quick to tell us
each time he ran out!





Tony Cruz did pick one or two 
off the bush by himself...


But stuck close to dad
so he could keep filling up 
his container for him.


Lex did pick more than she ate.


They all enjoyed eating their way
through the blackberry bushes.


And, naturally,
Rico had to hot dog a little!
From the looks of the black mark
on his cheek
in this picture...
it appears he MISSED that one!
But don't tell him!


Here is our bountiful
harvest!


Unfortunately the apples
started to go bad before we could eat them all.
Fortunately,
I got the opportunity to make apple filling for 
SOMETHING!
I haven't decided what,
I froze most of it.

And what blackberries survived the trip home 
from the mountains,
got frozen
and we have been using in 
smoothies
or
in my new water infuser!

We stopped
and posed for a few pictures...



When we got back up to the 
store,
to pay for our haul...
I told them they really should 
have weighed my kids
before we went out there.
And that I should probably pay for
a few more pints of blackberries.
I was thrilled when 
they told me it was
All You Can Eat
while you are picking!
Haha!!

Even though everyone else 
was pretty full from
eating our way through the orchard
I insisted on getting a could of apple treats
when we got back.
They had apple donuts,
blackberry donuts,
apple turnovers,
apple cider
and 
a few other things.
But those are all the things we tried.
The donuts were fantastic
and 
I was anxious to try the turnovers,
since this was now the THIRD
variety 
I had tried on our trip.
These were
BY FAR
the absolute BEST!
I bought 3 more for breakfast the next morning!!
Luckily no one else liked them as much 
as me,
so after warming them in the oven,
I had a great breakfast!

Apparently we had worked up quite an appetite!



These turnovers were finger licking good!!!



This concludes 
the
epic adventures
of 
"The 12 Days of Camping"

"Phew!"

1 comment:

  1. Yum! I love all these pictures. Makes me want to go there!

    ReplyDelete