Monday, October 6, 2008

Down on the farm

Our apple picking trip was fun. I found a farm that is only 6 miles from my dad's house, but it was a pretty convoluted 6 miles. It was nice to drive down some very quiet roads and look at the houses all decked out for fall and Halloween.

When we got to the farm, the first thing we saw was a gathering of old cars near the parking lot, so we went to check them out. Good timing on our part because they all drove off 5 minutes later. (Oh, I discovered what was wrong with my camera - I had left it set for fluorescent lighting. That's why everything was bluish. But I thought it gave my apple picking pictures an old-fashioned feel.)



What's a farm without a great old tractor?

Next, we bought our apple bag and our tickets for the corn maze. Inside the farmstand store, I was heartbroken to discover that all the baked goods and apple cider were SOLD OUT! Ack! What's apple picking without donuts and apple cider? Oh well. We hopped on the big tractor that took us to the orchard.



Apple picking goes pretty quickly, except when your four-year-old decides to have a meltdown because he doesn't want anyone else besides him to pick apples and fill the bag. But letting him use the apple picker pole for the ones up high made R happy again.

Next up - the corn maze. I overheard a woman on the tractor say that it takes an hour(!) to get through it, so I started getting nervous. Right away, A went his own direction and my dad and R and I went another way, which made me even more nervous. But it was fun and silly. You're supposed to find three mailboxes within the maze. In each mailbox is a hole punch that punches a different shape. You have a card that you carry with you and once all your holes are punched, you head for the exit. We found two mailboxes pretty quickly, then wandered around nearly lost looking for the third. And, just when we were starting to get antsy about being in the maze any longer (especially when R announced he had to poop), R yelled out, "DADDY!?!?!" And A just happened to be about 5 feet away from us. We found the last mailbox and had some failed attempts to find the exit, but finally we were free!



After a fun couple of hours at the farm, we realized that the real maze was finding the way back to my dad's house!

Now I have to track down some donuts and cider ...

5 comments:

sandwhichisthere said...

Sweetheart,
can you e-mail the pictures to me? I don't know how to print them from the blog. They are amaizing.
I didn't think that Rix had a meltdown. He spent a lot of time just sitting and wanted to do something. It is hard to get your own way when you are surrounded by people three times your size. I was very impressed by how well he behaved in the maze. He closely followed any cautions given to him and was very enthusiastic about the whole thing. He even endured his grandfather's attempt to cauterize his tonsils with no whining. Of course if he ever finds out that his elders were sneaking ice cream in the kitchen while he was watching television, the story may change. I can't recall ever hearing any serious whining from him. I never heard any from you either,
daddy

Greg C said...

The last time we went to our corn maze, we hadn't had any rain for months and it was about 3 ft tall. It wasn't any fun at all.

kc bob said...

Cool visit and pictures.. I love hot apple cider.. we lost our apple farm restaurant here in KC last year.. it was such fun to go there.. the food was great.

Suztash said...

Oh, I miss the apple, blueberry, and strawberry picking.:-( You can pick blueberries around here, and I guess there are places quite aways from here to pick strawberries, but it's the experiences with you kids I miss the most. Can't get that back. I'm glad you're doing all this with your little one. Love you.

LEstes65 said...

Love the pictures. Esp the last one of R by the sign. He is so freaking CUTE!

Mmmmm....donuuuuuuuts....

(insert Homer drooling noises here)