Apple Picking

I've been trying to do special Sunday morning things with the kids. Last week, Jake and I went to the lake beach alone and had a blast in the 85 degree weather. It was absolutely perfect - warm, breezy, the water cool at first but quite comfy after a few minutes, and he and I spent a fantastic morning playing with his floatie fish, tossing around a very wet nerf football, and digging a vast and complex network of irrigation tunnels.

Just one week later and I'm so glad we did the beach when we did. It was 55 degrees this morning and sunny but very crisp. Jake, Abby and I went to Carter's Mountain Orchard to do some apple picking. Jake had been wanting to go for some time so he was ecstatic. Add a few apple cider donuts, some kids to talk to, and some new technology to explore (we used a very long and heavy apple picker to get our Galas from the tops of the trees) and it turned into a great outing for him. Abby wasn't so happy to be in her stroller most of the time, but perked up when we shared tiny pieces of the donuts with her.

Here's Jake, among the Galas.

Jake and Abby, sharing the fruits of our labor:

We took turns playing worm:

The Red Delicious were closer to the ground and much easier to pick:

This is my Montessori child finding himself a "work" at the orchard. He figured out how to get the wagon sides all down and then worked to get them to all stay up again. Very patiently.

And this is my not-yet Montessori child wondering how in the world you eat a gourd!

At home, we had homemade apple juice, bread with apple butter, and made our special baked apple pancake recipe, one of Jake's favorites. I got this from a bed and breakfast cookbook and highly recommend it!

Baked Apple Pancake

2 Tbs butter

2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced ( we used 4 small ones)

1/2 c. brown sugar (we use a brown sugar and splenda blend)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c. flour (we used whole wheat pastry flour)

1/2 c milk ( we used soy milk)

2 eggs

a pinch salt

Melt the 2 TBS butter in a 9" pie plate. Mix apple slices, sugar, cinnamon and butter in a bowl. In another bowl, combine the flour, milk, eggs and salt. Pour into prepared pie plate. Place apple slices flat on top of the batter. Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Serve immediately.

I told Jake we ate so many apples for lunch that he might turn into an apple during his nap. He said, no that would never happen, but after a moment told me that after he dies, an apple tree might grow out of him!