Apple picking

The entire family went with friends to pick apples at a local orchard today, Mountain Orchards.

We had more choices than we had expected: McIntosh, Spartan, Lobo and Honey Gold, a type of Golden Delicious.

One of our bags ended up mostly filled with Macs, with the occassional Lobo. The Lobo was simply because we weren't always looking for the tag on the tree that indicated Lobo. The children didn't care what kind we got, as long as we got lots of apples.

Our second bag was filled with the Honey Gold apples, which come from much smaller trees. These apples were sweet, crisp and oooh so goood!

In addition to wonderful apples, Mountain Orchards also pulls you in with it's wonderful aroma. You can almost smell these from the parking lot! Apple cider donuts, made fresh and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar while still warm. It looked like this was a four person operation - two girls in the kitchen, each at different stages of making small batches of the batter, one person to operate the machine and release the batter into the hot oil, and one final person to pick up the still hot donuts, place them into the bag and sprinkle with the sugar.

No one in line in front of me ordered less than a dozen at at time. At $6 for a dozen, these warm rings of dough are alot pricier than the donuts you can get at any local donut shop, but nothing compares to the freshness and flavor. (And just a little note - I don't eat donuts anymore but really enjoyed these!)

And for a little giggle here. In addition to all kinds of homemade products like pickles and jams, plus the expected apple cider and pies, they also sell dog biscuits! I guess they couldn't resist the tie-in of the apples!

Tomorrow I'll be tackling some of the mountain of apples we brought home, making apple crumble pies, apple sauce and apple cakes.