Sampling the apples
One of our favorite family traditions is apple picking. Where I grew up in northern North Dakota, we didn't have any apple orchards to go to. So when I had my own family that was something I really wanted to experience. This year we had to go to a different orchard because the u-pick trees at our favorite orchard were damaged by frost last spring. In searching for an alternative, I found that not all orchards offer u-pick, but I found that
Deer Lake Orchard does thank goodness. They are actually not far from our regular orchard, so that was nice. It's a bit less fancy, but I liked that fact that it wasn't quite as crowded.
My daughter picking apples
We ended up picking a huge bag of Sweet 16 apples. At least I think they are Sweet 16, they could also be Harrelson. My only real criticism of this orchard is that they don't give you much guidance as to where the u-pick apples are and which is which. You pay for your bag up front in the store, and then they cashier gave very vague and confusing directions. We ended up wondering around for about 10 mins. before we finally found the u-pick, and then we still weren't sure whether we were picking Sweet 16 or Harrelson! Oh, well, they definitely taste great whatever they are!
Fuzzy (sorry) shot of momma and baby apple
Shop with more goodies
We also went back to the shop and purchased a bag of Honeycrisp apples and a jar of jam. Did you know that Honeycrisp apples were actually developed here at the University of Minnesota? They are my daughter's favorite.
Do you ever go apple picking? What is your favorite variety of apple?
Bye for now!
