September 30, 2007

I’m ready to start decorating the house to resemble the Fall season, and dammit, want a pumpkin. Not just any ol’ pumpkin - but a fresh from the farm “u pick” your own. So, Nick, Leah (a friend of Nick’s) and myself went online to find a pumpkin farm. We found Demarest Farm.

Upon arriving, we discovered everyone and their brother had the same idea - the place was packed! We parked and - looking across the street at the very long line awaiting a hayride - decided to make our way over to the Farm Store. Crowd swells made us change our mind and we just started walking around aimlessly wondering where to go. We decided to follow the tall cornstalks - and played in them for a few minutes.

After speaking with a couple of others, we realized the only way to get to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard was by hayride. Looking at the line winding its way around the building, Nick offers to “cut” us up closer. “Come on Mom - we can sneak in right here.” “I don’t think so - that’s wrong.” “You think standing in line for this is right?” “Nick, I may have been up for it if you hadn’t said it so damned loud that everyone around us knew what you were planning. Gotta be covert, buddy. Covert. Now - to the back of the line.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re on the hayride (a farm tractor pulling a trailer that had a couple of hay bundles stuck in the middle for the kids to sit on), and were on our way to the orchard. At first glance, wasn’t much impressed. Second glance wasn’t much better. They handed us plastic bags and set us on our way to find apples.

Nick was ready to go climb some trees. Forget those pole buckets the sissys use - we had monkey boy who could swing from limb to limb, plucking off fruit and tossing it down into the waiting bags. The first couple of trees didn’t produce many apples. (Granted, the ground was covered with apples - but we weren’t touching them.) At one point, Nick’s bag broke, and all of the apples came tumbling out.

I figured this was gonna be fun. How many would actually make it home with us? Then Nick found “his tree,” - full of apples. He climbed and plucked for quite awhile. He even retrieved them for other kids. Between Nick and Leah, they mastered tree climbing, and had filled a bag with apples.

Nick heard there were better trees over in another orchard, so we trekked over to check it out. There were a lot of apples poking out of the tops of the trees. We scouted for a good one.

Leah found her tree, and climbed up to find the motherlode of apples waiting on a branch just above her head. That tree was the one that kept on giving - we found branch after branch after branch loaded with apples. Leah and Nick decided it was the not only the best apple tree, but the most fun just to sit in, too.

Two hours later, this is what we came away with - two bags of apples (one of them shown here in the picture).

The pumpkin stayed behind.

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