I didn’t grow up with too much tradition. Or maybe I did. Maybe the tradition was doing things differently each time? I don’t know, but for me being someone who likes routine and finds comfort in experiencing the same activities in new light I had to start building my own traditions as I got older.
Every year we make our way to Kimmel Orchard in Nebraska City to pick our own apples from the orchards. I don’t know why we chose Kimmel, but I like it. Every year I get a bit more comfortable in the surroundings, exploring and picking our apples for the canning season.
What I love is that we have our basic tradition of going to Kimmel Orchard to pick apples, then we bring them home to make applesauce, but it’s different every year. Each year we pick a different type of apple, this year was Gala apples. Sometimes friends and family join us, sometimes we go on our own. Every year we’re in a different part of the orchard, exploring. Every year we do something different like hay rack rides or chase butterflies.
Sometimes when we’re done with our apple picking, we’ll go out to dinner. Or, depending on the time of day, we might take some time to explore Nebraska City. It is the home of Arbor Day after all and it’s absolutely beautiful! If you’ve ever heard of Tree City USA, this really is the place to go. They know their trees in Nebraska City!
This year Charlie was pleased to have found baby apples. I think we usually go later in the season, so this was a new find for us.
Lena buggered out after about half a bushel of apples. She loves doing new things, but her attention isn’t quite there yet. That’s okay with me. There are still quite a bit of things I can’t focus on for long periods of time either. I just told her to explore the trees to see what she could find. She was happy with that. This expression here was her first admission of not wanting to pick apples any more (honestly, it’s not as easy as it looks to do it right!)
Charlie, on the other hand, didn’t want to stop! She was an apple picking machine this year! She proudly showed off her masterpiece apple picks.
Over all we had a lot of fun and owe a great deal of thanks to Kimmel Orchard! Here’s part of our little apple harvest for the year. Hoping we can make it back another time or two to grab a couple more bushels of apples. Return visits are always to purchase what they’ve already picked, but they never disappoint! I’m already excited for next year’s traditional annual apple picking extravaganza!
What are your favorite kinds of apples to eat, bake with or can? Tell me your apple experiences in the comments!
Those don’t look like Galas to me – more like Pink Ladys.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripps_Pink
My favorite is McIntosh, which should hit the stores in mid-to-late September.
No, they’re definitely Gala’s. They don’t have the signature pink hue of the pink ladies. These are more of a orangey red than the pink ladies 🙂 It might be hard to tell in the pictures I took though. The pink ladies aren’t ready for picking yet at the orchard.