Apple Watching

We did our sort-of-annual apple picking expedition this year and the kids loved it even though there were no apples to pick due to a spring frost that hit Iowa, Illinois and Michigan.  It was more of an apple watching trip. The yield was 20% of the normal crop, so the orchards have all decided to have their workers pick the apples to make sure they get everything they can rather than letting people wander through to pick their own. The orchard owner where we went did let us walk out into the orchard with the kids so that we could show them the trees, and they managed to find a few rotten ones that had dropped to the ground that they insisted on taking home with us in the minivan.  It smelled like fermenting apples the next morning when I cleaned it out.

Fortunately for us, it was one of those apple orchards that has also added the kid magnet activities like a giant apple slingshot, water pump duck races, mini pedal tractors, a petting zoo and (perhaps the favorite) a giant sandbox filled with corn.  It was 90+ degrees the day we went and the cornbox was inside a shed with a roof to keep the sun off, so we spent a good chunk of time in there as the kids used buckets and shovels to dig themselves silly.  The smell of the corn reminded me of being on the farm where I grew up, as did the root/storm cellar with the walnut tree on top of it that was exactly like the one we had.  The only thing missing (besides the apples, of course) were apple cider donuts.  I am still on a fall quest to find one of those...