Quintessential Fall Fun

I moved to the east coast a little over a year ago.  One of the things I was most looking forward to experiencing was a REAL autumn.  Having lived in Texas all my life I have only ever experienced two seasons, hot and not so hot, so getting to be witness to a Maryland fall has been such a treat.  There is also the fact we don't have a hundredth of the trees Maryland has. The trees that are there are usually already brown because it is so dang hot there in the summer and hardly a drop of rain falls after May.  Seeing bright orange and deep, rich red leaves only happens once in a blue moon in Texas.

Wanting to take full advantage of being in a place that has a honest to God true autumn I had been talking with Bethany, my cousin's wife, about planning a day trip to do fallish activities. We were in the midst of making plans when we got an email from a member of our community group about going apple picking.  Well, you don't get any more fall than that!!  Apple picking was one of the things on my fall bucket list, so you can imagine how overcome with joy I was!  

It was decided we would head out to Woodbine, MD to Larriland Farm to get the full fall experience.  We left around lunch time and arrived about an hour later, so we were hungry when we got there.  Fortunately, there was a food tent with some yummy smelling BBQ waiting for us.  We got our food, a pulled pork sandwich and fried pickles for me, and sat in the grass by the pond for a little picnic before going picking.

They have about 5 or 6 varieties of apples to pick, as well as kale, broccoli, beets, and wild flowers to pick, and down the road about a mile is the pumpkin patch.  There are rows upon rows of apple trees and you just walk down a row and reach up to pick your apples.  One of the nice things is they keep the trees on the smaller side, so it is easy to actually reach the apples.  One of the girls was saying at another farm they had to use sticks to knock the apples off the trees.  I could have picked a whole bushel full of apples, but decided since I would actually have to do something with all the apples I picked, I better just stick with about 5 lbs.  After the apple picking, we set off for the field of wild flowers and I came home with the most beautiful bouquet and a few will flying critters decided to tag along for the ride as well.  I perused through the little market in the barn and snagged a couple of other tasty treats before making our way to the pumpkin patch.  It was truly a day to remember!