Fall Harvest Time: Apples

Last Saturday really was a harvest day for us. After spending the morning and early afternoon at Petaluma Pumpkin Patch selecting our Halloween pumpkins we headed a little further north to Twin Hills Ranch, Sebastopol for a little apple picking.  

Ava's bucket of Fujis

A few weeks back Ava's class at school was learning about apples. They carried out a hands-on "science investigation" in which they compared different varieties of apples. Since this investigation work Ava has become somewhat of an expert on apples (or at least, she believes she has!) and has been very interested in the different varieties. Her new favourite variety is Red Delicious which, according to her investigation findings, smells like lemon, taste likes lemon and has a part rough / part smooth texture. Needless to say, the first apple variety we had to pick was Red Delicious.

Ava's first Red Delicious

Ava picking teeny, tiny Red Delicious apples

Looking for the perfect apple

This one's good

Red Delicious

I'm not a huge fan of Red Delicious apples so next we moved onto picking one of my favourites, Fujis. According to Ava's apple investigation at school Fujis smell like a daisy, taste like lemon and feel part rough / part smooth. A very scientific analysis!

Perfect child sized Fuji

Ava's bucket of Fujis

We mostly picked Red Delicious apples as apparently they're good for making pie and I plan on doing a little baking. We also picked lots of little apples (both Red Delicious and Fuji) as they're the perfect size for the girls to eat. It was hard to avoid going overboard with all those delicious apples hanging there ready to pick. I managed to keep the number of apples that we picked relatively low (we ended up with three shopping bags full) but if it was up to Ava we would've kept on picking until there were none left!

Strolling through the orchard

Heading back with a bucket of apples

Driving home we had a deer run across the road in front of us. It was never in any danger of being hit as both us and the car coming the other direction stopped for it, but it was a little freaky. I managed to snap this shot of it as it ran across in front of us before heading into the trees on the side road.

Deer crossing