What a Fun Day!

We went apple picking this morning ('tis the season) and had a picnic after at one of the local forest preserves. We found an orchard much closer than the one we visited two years ago called Heinz Orchard and I had a nice discussion with one of the owners about picking up some of his dropped apple wood branches for spoon carving. If I'm lucky he'll allow me to shadow him as he prunes the trees so I can figure out just how to manage my own fruit trees in the future.

Macintosh, Empire, and Jonathan apples are currently in season and next week Golden Delicious will be ready for picking.

Two years ago (has it been that long already?) we picked a bushel of apples (or at least two pecks) and I made apple sauce, apple crisp, and Christine made so many delicious apple deserts that we must've all put on a couple of pounds.

Today we discussed putting in some fruit trees so all this time outdoors is paying off. We won't have an orchard by any means but a couple of producing apple and pear trees would be a wonderful treat late summer/early fall. I'm going to have to do some work to figure out just where to put them but that's a minor issue to tackle now that the opportunity has presented itself.

I'll talk a bit about the picnic/hike tomorrow. After a weekend of soccer, soccer, and more soccer, plus apple picking, picnicking, and hiking, I'm plum wore out. :)

Thanks for reading,


B