An Apple A Day (For The Next Month Or So)

So we went apple picking. Before we get to those pictures -- check out this one.

How much do I love that Strawberry Shortcake dolls are back? Hint: A REALLY LOT.

Anyway, to get from the main part of the farm to the apple trees, we took a ride on this awesome old converted school bus. A topless awesome old magical converted school bus. Shae loved just looking at it, let alone riding in it. I hope I'm not the one who has to tell her that if we stay at our current address, she'll be walking to school. She thinks the school bus is like the greatest thing ever -- and riding in the farm's bus isn't going to change her mind, because it was pretty cool. Even I'll admit it.

On this trip we picked two types of apples I've never heard of before: Idareds, a sweet crunchy Macintosh-y looking variety, and Mutsus, a green-gold apple with a softer flesh. I think they told us that Idared is a baking apple and Mutsu is for eating, but honestly we've done both with each, and I don't care what the "intended" use is -- they're both delicious. And pretty.

Shae was just like the proverbial kid in the proverbial candy store -- once we got off the bus, there were apples everywhere. And Shae went BANANAS. We had a tough time vetting her contributions to our boxes of apples because she was picking up every apple she saw off the ground. She's a Haldaman, that one: if there is food and it is not actively in someone's mouth, she will grab it. That's my girl.

She got the hang of it, though. It helped that when we got to the second set of apple trees, there was a ton of fruit close to the ground, well within her reach.

I think her favorite part was getting to be her own "quality control inspector" -- she looked over each and every apple, and we had to keep a close eye on her to make sure she didn't take a bite out of every one.

Between all of us in our party, we ended up with probably 25 pounds of apples. Just the stuff we picked was more than 12 pounds. We'll be eating apples for a month, probably.

Good thing we like apples.