A Day in the Life of Mui: Apple picking

When I was younger, we used to have an apple tree in our backyard. I remember picking apples a couple of years, but one year, our tree froze, and stopped producing apples. It's still in my parents' backyard, but it doesn't produce apples anymore. Since then, I never thought of apple picking, until I moved to Brooklyn.

Apparently, a lot of city folk go apple picking. Once September hits, you can find orchard recommendations in local newspapers and magazines, as well as blogs and other online sources. Most of my Brooklyn friends have gone and they tell me, it is an enjoyable experience. I have been wanting to go for the past few years, but we never made plans. We'd say, "There's always next year". This year rolled around, and I decided, we are going. I started looking at the calendar and planning a day in September. I told Joey. He was so excited. That's when Tony got super busy at work. We didn't think we could do it this year. We felt bad for Joey because he really wanted to go. We told him, "Next year". Bummer. Then on Friday, Tony came home and told us he had the weekend off. He wanted to go apple picking that Saturday!

Okay. There are quite a bit of apple orchards outside of the city. It was very difficult to choose one. I got several recommendations from friends, and I narrowed our search from there. We chose Dubois Farms, which is in Highland, NY. They were having a festival that weekend. They had games for the kids, hayrides, pony rides, a cornfield maze, and a BBQ. I think we found a winner!

We left around 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. It would take us three hours to get there. We invited my mother-in-law to go with us. She doesn't leave the city very often, so it was nice to have her with us. I drove and Tony was my navigator. (I tried being the navigator once, and I kept getting us lost, even with the GPS) We hit weekend traffic and it took us over an hour to get out of the city. Tony and I tried our best not to get annoyed, it was close, but we managed to remain upbeat. We eventually hit the rolling hills of upstate NY. Let me tell you, the drive was wonderful. The leaves were just starting to turn and it was so beautiful.

We made it to our destination. There was quite a bit of cars, but the orchard is so big, it did not seem that crowded. As you enter, there is an area where you can rent a wagon. I didn't want to lug that thing around, but I am sure glad we chose to rent one. We didn't think to bring our own bags, so we had to purchase them for $1. Everything is paid by the pound. With our bags in tow, we set off. Most of the apples have been harvested, and all that were left on the trees, were the golden delicious apples. We picked a few of those and wandered around, searching for the other apples that were suppose to be in harvest. We found them, but they were already picked from the trees and were in wooden crates, which was fine with us.

A few days before, Joey did an apple experiment at school. They studied different varieties of apples. They learned the names, the colors, and the different tastes each one had. With that said, Joey became our resident apple expert. It was very entertaining, listening to him explain each apple. Here are some of the facts that he shared with us:

"Golden delicious apples are sour, but not as sour as granny smith apples."
"These are called mcintosh apples. Half of it is red and the other half is green. They are sour."
"The empire apples are sweet."

Without him, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between an empire and a mcintosh. He didn't stop there, he asked us if the orchard had granny smith (his favorite apple) and red delicious apples. I think they did, but they were already harvested.

After we picked our fill of apples, my mother-in-law and Tony went to buy some apple cider and apple cider donuts. The donuts were so yummy. We bought a half gallon of cider to take home with us. While they were in line, Joey and I went over to the pumpkin patch to find the "perfect pumpkin" In this case, pumpkins. He found a small one that was perfect for him, and we picked a larger one to carve. We walked through the whole orchard. Along the way, we found tomato plants, eggplants, and grapes. We picked a few of each. That was fun. We looked at the animals at the their small farm. Joey enjoyed the llamas and chickens. He wanted a pony ride, but for $6, that was not happening. He can ride a horse for free in NM. Our last stop was the corn maze. That was fun. We were out in about 10 minutes, but Joey liked it. The orchard was closing up soon, so we decided to pay for our produce. My mother-in-law, Joey, and I went back to the car, while Tony went to pay for our produce. In the car, we decided to try some of the cider. It was delicious! My MIL suggested we get more. So I went back to the orchard to find Tony. I got there and the line was so long. Since it was closing time, everyone was checking out. We stood in line for a while. I was not sure how much everything would cost. I didn't want to get to the register and realize we had to pay $100. I know some people would be paying that much with the amount of apples and pumpkins they had. A few people in line realized this, and were dumping their apples left and right, which irked Tony and I. The orchard asks that we pick just what we will eat, but these people had bags and bags of apples, and these bags were not small. Oh well. We finally paid for everything and the price was not bad. We got back to the car and Joey was asleep. He slept for most of the drive home. The traffic was good, for the most part. The day tired us out and we all had a good night's sleep.

It was a fun day. I enjoyed getting out of the hustle and bustle of the city. The drive was spectacular. The air seemed more fresh and crisp. Everything was green and clean. I loved it. I finally see why us city folk leave the city for a day, it's refreshing. I think apple picking will now be added to the list of things we will be doing every year. It was that much fun.