Fall is my favorite thing about living in Upstate NY. Hay rides, hot apple cider (spiked with Jack Daniels when I’m not pregnant), pumpkin patches and apple picking. We took the kids apple picking today for Sunday Funday (our family day together) and had a blast. This will probably be our only apple adventure this season because the orchards were hit hard by the spring and summer weather and, well, we may be a little busy this fall.
The kids are a riot these days. They have a big obsession right now with Old MacDonald, farms, farm animals, the noises that animals on the farms make, things that grow on farms (karn/corn, ah-pulls/apples, HAY!/hay…), tractors and the like. We watch a lot of Baby Doolittle and they hand me my cell phone and sing “e-i! e-i!” so that I’ll play this clip on YouTube. Last week was Farm Theme Week at preschool and they lost their minds.
As soon as we pulled up to the farm that has the orchard they started singing “E-I-E-I-O”. They waved to every car that drove off the farm “Bye! See you!” like they were the farm’s greeting committee. The pointed out all of the fruits and veggies at the farm — all were clearly ‘corn’ and ‘apples’. Even though most of it was actually squash and pumpkin. And at one point we thought Reese was sniffing the mums, only to find that she was actually licking them. I have no words for that.
This was their third time picking apples, as we took them twice last year, and I think they were somehow less interested in picking this time around even though they are clearly more capable. Their focus was 100% on eating. I swear that the farm stands should weigh my kids before and after they “pick” fruit instead of weighing our bags. I’m pretty sure they each ate a bushel. I tried to encourage collection and not consumption, but once they realized they could throw their half-eaten apple on the floor and pick a new, fresh one, the battle was lost for good.
Reese soon figured out that daddy was carrying a fresh stash of uneaten apples and began trading hers in while Joe and I were picking. We kept coming back to the bag to find half eaten apples piled on top.
The best part of the apple season being a bit diminished this year is that there were a lot of very small apples left on the trees, which are perfect for finicky toddler lunches wherein they request foods based on the sole fact that they can actually say the word that the food is called. I was thrilled by our haul and am so thankful we were able to make time to do this together before we welcome the new sprout.
