One of my favorite things of the summer ended up being visiting the local farmer's market on a regular basis. It was tiny, but the produce was yummy and I liked supporting my local growers. When I was growing up we always had a large garden, or were at least always helping my grandparents with there huge garden. My kids, on the other hand, occasionally watch mom kill a vegetable plant in a pot, and hope they are at either grandparents house when some gardening action is going on. But I still think it's important for my kids to get to experience picking their own food right off the tree or plant. What my kids don't appreciate is only having to pick what you want and not getting in trouble for leaving stuff on the plant (I've had to pick lots of green bean in my days, and you don't get to leave anything that's ready on the plant when it's your own garden). Anyway, after that long unrelated introduction, the point of this post is that apple season came early this year. So if you want to go apple picking this season, you better go now!
Recently we headed over to Eckert's after school to do some apple picking. They were, and still are, running a pick one pound, get one free promotion. It ends September 9th. The best part about this adventure was Grandma was in town to go with us! This was our first trip to Eckert's and the boy's first time apple picking. It was lots of fun!
Besides apples, we found a birds nest in one tree.
The tractor-pulled wagon ride to the orchard wasn't running when we were there. We had to ride a small bus to the orchard. I was a little disappointed, but my kids were not. Brenton thought it was the coolest bus he had ever been on. Ethan said it was the first bus he'd ever ridden, so he was very excited.
Earlier this summer, my cousin invited us down to go blueberry picking at Liberty Blueberry Farms, south of Saint Louis in Farmington. My kids loved picking blueberries and eating them while we were there. They wouldn't eat any after we got home though, not even blueberry muffins! Oh well, we had a great time with the cousins!
