Apple Time

Today we celebrated the first day of fall by making our annual pilgrimage to Ellijay to go visit an apple orchard.  We popped in the fall music in the car, and had a pretty easy drive westward to the mountains past Dawsonville and eventually through Ellijay as well.  We pass by the big apple places on the way there, all of them lined up in an area called Cartecay.  Can you believe we've never noticed that name before?  We always called it Ellijay.  

Anyway, there was traffic and police stopping cars so that pedestrians can cross from full parking lots to these orchards that were teeming with families.  The orchards have mini-golf courses, petting zoos, photo opportunities, zip lines and here's a new thing:  swimming pig races.  You know, when people want to go for a nice pleasant drive upcountry to pick apples, they also want to go see swimming pig races, am I right?  The zip line thing is funny too, because we're picturing people zip lining over actual apple orchards, perhaps with a basket in hand so they can grab apples off the tops of trees as they zoom overhead.

Of course, we don't do much of that.  First of all, there are lots of people.  We wanted to go to an orchard that has fewer people, and that means we drive through Ellijay, continuing west until we reach this other place further along.  There aren't as many people here, but there's a nice hay ride up the mountain, where there are plenty of trees and types of apples.

Here's Mommy and Madison at the base, where the hay ride begins and ends.  This year, the crop of apples was not as attractive as past years.  We've been to this particular orchard for eight years or so, just because it doesn't have zip lines and swimming pig races.  It has apple trees, and a hay ride to get to said apple trees.  But this year's crop of apples was hurt by a hail storm, and apparently there was a tornado in the area as well.  The frequent rain didn't help much either, apparently.  The apples were plentiful, but certainly a bit dinged.

We got ourselves a basket, regardless, making our way through the rows of trees while looking for the best ones.  Tonight, Mommy made fruit salad with these apples, and it is going to be delicious tomorrow.  This is a nice tradition of ours, and the start of the season, really, and pretty appropriate that it is the first day of fall.  It was fairly warm outside though, so we weren't out in it for too long this time.

There's nothing you can do about the weather, and there's no one to really blame for a bad looking crop.  We've got good apples though, and they'll be used for making apple butter, fruit salads and other tasty treats.  Speaking of which, afterwards, we went to the shop at the top of the hill there and had ourselves an apple cinnamon doughnut and an apple cider to drink, while we rocked in rocking chairs at the top there.  It's part of the tradition of the trip.

We got home a little later after this, and had such a spectacular dinner.  Mommy made this butternut squash soup, and an unbelievable salad.  We enjoyed dinner together, and then watched a movie before heading upstairs for reading and bedtime.  It was a nice day, one we've been doing for years now.  We've been doing this trip to pick our own apples ever since 2012, with our first trip to the Red Apple Barn.  It's been a lot of fun, and no doubt we'll keep heading over to Ellijay to do this.  It's just a nice way to kick off the fall season.