Gorgeous Weekend

This weekend was positively beautiful for the beginning of October. The sky was bright blue, the trees are almost at their peak of change and the clouds look like big puffy marshmallows. Oh, and the temperature must have been near 70. After I got home from work, I decided it would be a good day to take the kids apple picking. We went to a "berry" patch about an hour from our home and were able to pick apples and raspberries. All in all we picked 1.2 pounds of raspberries and 31.4 pounds of apples. The apples took about 20 minutes to pick and the berries took almost an hour. An awful lot of work for such little reward. The berry bushes were pretty well picked over so we had to practically lie down on the ground to see any good berries. Here my youngest inspects a berry. She takes her berry picking very seriously...



















Once we were satisfied with the number of berries we were able to find, we decided to go check out the apples. I want to make applesauce and apple butter, so I went in search of McIntosh apples. The first row of McIntosh trees we found had no apples on any of the trees. I was about to be very disappointed, when I noticed apples on the trees in the next row. They were Cortland apples, but they make good applesauce too. We picked HUGE apples. Some were so big that they were nearly the size of my entire hand. Upon finishing our picking, we had to wait in line to weigh our finds and the girls let me snap their picture. My oldest threatened to drop the apples if I tried to take his picture...













We all had a good time, but all of us were quite tired by the time we finished. The place was mobbed with people and the warmer than usual temps for October made for some overheated moments.

So here are some picutres of the 'fruits' of our labor...LOL
One of our two bags of apples. Oh how I wish I could put a scratch and sniff link...these apples smell amazing!













And our slightly out of focus berries!







I am hoping I have enough berries to make a small batch of jelly, but I think we may need to supplement from a farm market or the grocery store.