apple picking – Catching Marbles

You know what’s awesome about having a birthday at the end of September? It’s the perfect time to go apple picking! So that’s what I did to celebrate entering another year of life. And this year I decided to bring an old friend who happened to live just down the street from several orchards. I chose this one as it seemed to have a lot of varieties of apples listed and it also seemed a little less touristy. You know me, the perpetual introvert. I like supporting the little guys whenever I can.

I couldn’t have had a better experience. The people were wonderful, the apples were DELICIOUS, and we had such a great time catching up and picking the perfect bag of apples. This orchard was really lovely in that it allowed people to come with their well-behaved dogs so there were cute fluffy dogs accompanying their owners. It was like wandering through a Norman Rockwell painting.

And this orchard was nice in that it had all the trees labelled with colored markers, so you knew what kind of apple you were picking and what week they were supposed to be ripe. It had rained earlier on in the day so the ground was SOGGY and my friend had to lop off her shoes and barefoot it through the puddles. The grey clouds and raindrops on the apples made for some nice photo opportunities!

This place was really wonderful. I ended up with a bag of apples (and some of these apples were HUUUGE) as well as a $10 pumpkin which was perfectly round and I honestly don’t know if I am going to carve it or eat it. There was also a regular farm stand here so you could just buy a bag of apples if you didn’t want to pick them yourself.

I would definitely go back to this orchard. It was beautiful, the apples were just an amazing quality, and the people running the place were friendly and warm. This was the perfect way to spend my birthday.

My mother told me recently she’d never been apple picking so I decided to take her today. She’s been super observant of social distancing and really needed to get out of the house. Apple picking seemed like the perfect outing after being cooped up for so long.

I looked at the reviews of local orchards and the one in Mason peaked my interest. It was an odd deja vu adventure that transpired from there. Imagine my surprise to find it was a farm I actually knew about and played on when I was a small child. I couldn’t have been more than four or five when I spent at least one day there playing with the little boy who lived there. I don’t even remember his name now.

Everything was as I remembered. This place was down a long dirt road smack dab in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest, with a few shady paddocks where some horses happily loitered.

I had to follow signs to get to the orchard. The Prius already wasn’t happy with me driving it down a dirt road. It was even less pleased when the parking turned out to be a grassy patch of free space behind a stone wall and well off the road. Judging by the looks I was getting this may have been the first Prius to visit…

We were the only ones there besides the woman who owned the property. I knew it was the end of the season but I was still hopeful. She directed us towards the trees that were still fruiting. A few pear trees were present with a sparse smattering of fruit still left. Behind them was a row of Red Delicious. I’m not a fan of Red Delicious so I went towards the Golden Delicious that were still heavy with apples. The rows were marked with the types of apples – Mccoun, McIntosh, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Courtland, and Honeycrisp. However, being so late in the season most of the trees were bare. My mother picked some small Mccouns which she favored for being so hard. I filled my bag with Golden Delicious before she found three or so Honeycrisp trees that still had some apples. Score! I was happy! Now I got the apples and the Mason jars I am going to be making apple butter for Christmas!

This orchard was perfect for someone looking for a little known place with few people. Their prices were VERY decent too – cheaper than their competition for sure! And I was told that had we come at the end of September we would have also found peaches to pick. This is unusual for New England. All and all it was a lovely little adventure off the beaten track, well worth the visit!

Tag: apple picking

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