Orchard 2013

Once a year I give in and bring the family out to my favorite area to ride my bike. It was also Diana's birthday so, two birds one stone. I take the long way so they can see the rolling hills, the climbs, and the gravel(!). They love every second of it.

Then we get to the orchard and the excitement is immediately sucked out of me by having to pay $12 for the right to walk around and pick my own apples. As I walk through the door I ask the lady where the honey crisps are and she explains to me that since the honey crisps are a hybrid they require special care when picking and therefore they are only available for purchase in the store. This is more bullshit than the $12 fee. So we hop on the tractor and ride around for a few minutes until we get to the harlson's. 

We start walking down the row and there are hardly any apples at first, but as we get in further there starts to be more and more. I snagged a few off the tree for sampling as the kids looked for the perfect apples.

They collected a few apples and then we decided to go look for the sweet 16. We never found them and were tired of walking so we just went to the playground for a bit where I had the privilege of listening to one parent drone on to another about how her parents were in therapy together for the past several years. Like candida, I hope I never have enough money to require therapy.

Soon it was time to feed the animals. They love the food and the attention. This is the highlight of the trip for me. There was a white llama that was getting pretty aggressive to get at the food and it scared Aurora enough that she refused to feed the donkey. 

Albino pumpkins are scarier

Every year when we look at the pumpkins I always make the statement "We should buy some of the giant pumpkin seeds online and grow two of them next year." Never happens. 

I thought that it was a little early to get a pumpkin being that there is still 4 weeks before Halloween but every single pumpkin had already been cut off the vine. They probably know better than me. 

cowch

Once back inside the kids began climbing all over this couch despite the sign in the upper right hand corner telling them not to. My first thought was to this classic Chappelle Show clip (NSFW):

We then made the dreaded trip to the checkout. We had maybe 12-15 apples. Most were smaller in size so that Aurora could bring them to school for lunch. The cashier said $8.54. With a straight face. Thank god that there is no Apple picking union because if picking your own apples costs $20.00 then I can't even fathom how much a bushel would cost that is shipped in from Pennsylvania.

Then we went out for sushi and topped it off with my first ever trip to Cherry Berry.

It was a good day for all of this, the kids had a good time, and I got to see my second favorite animal in the world.

(s)he remembered me