Apple Picking!

We went apple picking today. :)

This is one of those things that is on my "things I need to do while I live in New England" to-do list. I had never been to an apple orchard before - or any kind of orchard that I remember actually. Kyle and I both had the day off thanks to Mr. Columbus, so we decided to make a day of it and head out to one of the many farms.

Before we headed out, we met up with some friends who invited several people over to their place for breakfast. So, that was nice. We enjoyed the company and the hospitality. it was very nice to start our day with full bellies. By 11, we were on the road and drove about 45 mins out of the city to a place called the Tougas Family Farm.

Karen also came with us - and I think she was more excited than either of us were about the day. I'm glad she came along. All in all, we had a great time. I was in awe that you could just pick an apple and eat it right there. It was awesome. We walked through the orchards trying all kinds of apples, comparing empires to red delicious apples, galas to mcintosh, honeycrisps to fuji - there are so many kinds of apples! I think the general consensus was that the Empire apples were the best, although Karen was pretty excited about the honeycrisps too. The red delicious apples were surprisingly bland. The McIntosh apples were nice and sweet but not as crisp as I liked. The Galas were my second favorite - they had a honey taste to them but were still nice and crunchy.

It was a really nice day too. A little cool, but that's the way it should be for such an occasion. We spent some time at the petting zoo before getting our bags and tickets for the short wagon ride out to the orchard. Then, we spent a couple of hours at the orchard and enjoyed some apple crisp before heading home.

I took 453 pictures. So, you can imagine that it was a bit difficult to narrow it down to the few I'll post here. Enjoy!

Oh, and happy 10 months Abigail! More updates about that tomorrow. :)