Apply Dapply, a little brown mouse,
Goes to the cupboard in somebody’s house.
In somebody’s cupboard, there’s everything nice:
Cakes, cheese, jam, biscuits – all charming for mice!

~Beatrix Potter

On the fall agenda, there are a few perennial must-do items, and apple picking is one of them!  We’ve picked at a few different places in the past few years, and when we discussed where we’d get our apples this year, we were torn between three options – going back to Crooked Run, the Loudoun County orchard we visited last year; checking out the scene at Butler’s Orchard, where we picked blueberries; and trying out a new location.  Since we want to pick pumpkins at Butler’s, we decided to look for a new spot for apples, and Steve hit on Waters Orchard, which is right next door to Butler’s.  As always happens in the fall, I’m behind on posting our family fun, so this was a few weeks ago – but a few turns of the way-back machine and here we are!

The first thing we saw upon arriving at the farm was a big tractor with a large hayride wagon attached to it.  The boys had to check it out.

And since the Jonagold apples were on the far side of the orchard (still walkable, but you know) we hopped on for a ride.

Rollin’ with the homies…

We all had fun, but a certain someone had the most fun.

So excited he had to make “kindergarten face.”  Oh, brother!

The hayride was over way too soon, but it was fine, because we found ourselves at the Jonagold apples!  This was the first apple orchard I’ve ever visited that had the apple trees trained.  I really liked it – made it much easier to get to the fruit.

The hardest thing about picking at Waters Orchard was refraining from picking every single apple – they were all gorgeous.  I don’t know if it was the trained trees, the fact that we came right in the middle of picking season instead of at the very end, or just a good orchard – but their fruit was really nice.

Peanut has been a pretty reliable picker for awhile now (both of apples and other fruit and flowers when we’ve checked out various pick your own farms throughout the year) but this was the first time that Nugget was legitimately helpful.

When did he get so big?  Hold me.

Peanut was all business.  She was a picking machine and kept up a constant stream of chatter about her baking plans.  It seems we will be making applesauce and pie and apple cake.  We might need to pick more apples.

I really wanted them to stand together for a picture.

This was the closest I could get them to stand to each other.

When is Mom going to be done with the pictures?  (Never, kids.  I will never be done.)

After we’d half-filled our bags with Jonagolds, we walked back to the front of the orchard to pick Hudson’s Golden Crisps.  I’d never heard of them, but I was sold immediately when I read the orchard’s description of them as having “a pear-like flavor.”  Asian pears are my absolute favorite fruit, so anything that even approaches mimicking them is clearly on my must-try list.

Also, they were gorgeous.  I started asking one of the orchard employees where they were, then cut myself off and said, “Never mind – I see them.”  She laughed and replied, “Yeah, they stand out.”

Verdict?

Absolutely delicious.

Thanks for a fun family morning on the farm, Waters, and thanks for the half bushel of deliciousness!  Fall baking, here we come…

Did you go apple picking this fall?  What are your must-do fall activities?