A couple weeks ago, we visited an apple orchard for the first time. We went to a little farm that we went strawberry picking to last year, and were pleasantly surprised to see they also had a very nice pick your own pumpkin patch (I insist on going to a patch where they don’t have the pumpkins out of the patch).

We had so much fun! They had four varieties of apples to pick, though we skipped the red delicious. We picked Melrose, Empire and Golden Delicious. The farm lets you try one each of the apples, so the kids had a couple right there in the orchard.

This was the best picture I could get every time I requested they stand next to each other for a photo. I gave up!

Grandma came with us and she pointed out the woolly bear caterpillars. We saw two while we were there, and managed not to squish them. The kids might have been more fascinated by it than the apples.

Coraline knocked an apple off without meaning to and tried to put it back. It got funnier when Jameson tried to help her put it back too! We took it home instead when it wouldn’t stay…

We’ve made apple crisp, eaten raw, and made dehydrated cinnamon sugar apple rings with our apples. We don’t have too many left. I think next year we could buy more if we store them properly in the cold garage. The fresh apples taste amazing!

There was a cute hayride back from the apple orchard, and we rode it all around again. Then we decided to go ahead and pick pumpkins too. Jameson of course tried to pick the biggest one he could carry.

Coraline searched for “baby” pumpkins. We found a couple, but they were only baby ones because they didn’t grow properly, so her baby one we took home has since rotted (she didn’t notice when we made it disappear).

We used finger paints to paint a couple of the pumpkins and put them safely out of the rain underneath our porch. The rest are still awaiting carving since we haven’t had much time to do it yet. But we’ll get it done before or on Halloween! Jameson’s teacher at school told us that he loved the pumpkin goop from the one they carved in class, so it should be a good time.