It's Apple Season!!!

I woke up this morning to a FB alert from Jonamac Orchard letting me know apple picking begins today. So I ran to the farmer's market to get my produce for the week and then we headed out to the orchard which is only 30 minutes away from the house.

I thought we'd pick some apples, get some cider and be back to the house in 2 hours top. I did not realize how amazing this little orchard/farm is and how much they have set up for the kids to play/climb/explore. It's a great family outing kind of place. The kids were excited to hear they could pick one of their favorite variety of apple, the gala (though the Fuji and Granny Smith are their true fav). They grow several different varieties that I had never even heard of. Today's picks were ginger golden, blondee and gala.

Who doesn't love a giant rocking chair?

 We gave the camera to Liam for him to take a picture of us and he surprised us. He centered the picture better than I expected.

 Liam did a much better job than the random stranger we asked to take a picture of all 5 of us. But at least she got us all in the picture.

 We knew we had to stop by the store before we picked apples. We could smell the apple cider donuts all the way in the parking lot...I'm not exaggerating. As soon as we walked into the little store, Nick said, "this is my mom, all day long!". The boys were drawn to the Halloween decor setup but Ellie knew better. She went right past it.

and walked straight to the bakery counter where the caramel apples and cider donuts were. 

I'm surprised that none of the kids asked for a caramel apple. They're not big caramel fans so I think they realized they were better off with just the donuts. 

 Liam didn't even let us take a picture first. He took a bite immediately. The other two know me better, I guess. :)

 Off we went to pick the apples. None of us had ever seen an apple tree before so we all were learning and exploring together. There were so many different varieties. I was happy that they had an apple tasting station where they gave out samples of the apple varieties available today. We tried the Ginger Gold and it was deliciously sweet and smooth. The blondee was very similar as well.

Below is a Cortland apple tree. Another variety we've never heard before but they were not ready today.

Empire apples

We found the Ginger Gold...

 I went to pick this apple and noticed it had a different "stem" and when I looked closely, it was a spider hiding inside.

 Nick brought him out for the pic.

Gavin's first pick

 I believe the ones on the bottom pic are "crimson crisp". They are a very different and deep red color. Beautiful fruit.

 And we found the gala apples row...

 There were SO many gala apples on the trees, I wanted to "rescue" them all but we were running out of room in our bag. At Jonamac, you buy a bag first, either a 1/2 peck or a full peck, and then you go pick apples. You can pick as many as you can fit in the bag. We bought 1/2 peck because they said it could hold 16 apples or so. I believe we ended up with 25 in the bag (and then the kids each took one for the road in their hands so about 28 total).

 I.WANT.THIS.TREE!

 One for the road...

 Our full bounty. Now, I have to figure out what to make with all of these. We already had a 3lbs bag of apples in the refrigerator and now we added these. I am not too worried about them going bad. Our kids can go through some apples.

 There was an "Apple Launcher" station where they "recycled" the apples that had fallen off the trees that no one wants to take. The kids were excited to try to shoot the apples on the target. I felt a bit awkward having them use this "cannon" type fixture. It was very loud and too "sniper" like for my taste.

 The slingshots on the other hand were much more fun.

 They were pretty tight resistance bands. The boys had to put some muscle on them.

beautiful rows of apple trees

 I always imagined apple trees as really tall trees. The trunks on some of these seemed very thick like they are supposed to be bigger trees. This made us think that they keep the trees trimmed down so that people/kids are able to pick the apples. It's too bad that it takes about 8 years for a tree to produce fruit because I really want one in our yard.

 Every time we walk by a "Christmas tree", we have to smell it to see if it smells like one. This one did not but it was still beautiful to admire.

 The Barnyard playground is awesome. It had something for all ages. Nick even went down this slide.  It was a pretty fast slide. Everyone could hear Ellie scream as she came down EACH time. When I asked her to keep it down, she said, "I scream because it's fun" and that was that.

 The "coolest" place of all was the corn silo. We hung out in here for a while. The corn kept our legs cool and massaged our feet when we walked on it. Every parent in there was thinking the same thing, "we need one of these in our backyard" because every kid was so entertained by it.

 This "Jumping Pillow" thing is a new attraction for us. We've never seen anything like it. It's like a bouncehouse but no house. This "pillow" is buried in the sand and any one can jump on it. There was no weight limit posted.

 The kids all wanted me to go in and jump with them. So I did.

 It was fun and a good workout.

 Everything was great until THIS happened. Look at Liam in the pic below. It was terrifying.

 They asked me to jump higher so I did. Liam slipped and when I bounced back down, it pushed his skinny lower body over his head and completely turned his back/neck in the wrong direction. He was screaming, "get me out of here, get me out of here." I thought his neck was seriously injured. Luckily, he was able to stand up and walk out with me. We did some back stretches to help but he was done for the day. It was a scary few seconds/minute. Now we both need a chiropractor. :/

All was better when they rode the apple train.

Liam was happy by then

Ellie was the "little green apple." :) 

 There's also a petting zoo at Jonamac. This was by far the cleanest petting zoo I have EVER been to. I, actually, touched the animals which I NEVER do. I'm always paranoid about the germs, the dirt, and the smell but this one was different. I even asked if they had just bathed the goats because I have never seen goats with coats as white and smooth as these. The staff just said that they work hard to keep their pens clean and so the goats stay clean as a result.

Feeding the sheep

 The best goats ever....

 Ellie even fed some of the goats. She wasn't scared of them licking her. They were well-behaved goats.

 I'm petting a goat for the first time!!!

 We like this goat. It just chilled in the sun and when she came down, she cried to us. We replied and she talked back.

We will definitely go back to Jonamac Orchard and plan our day better. I didn't realize there would be so much stuff the kids would enjoy doing. They could've spent all day there. Next time, we'll pack some food and stay longer. There were no vegetarian lunch options so we had to eat elsewhere.
We look forward to going back in October when we can pick pumpkins in a REAL pumpkin patch, as in the kids can pick the pumpkin right off the plant.
Til next time!