falling into fall

For the past few weeks, it's been amazing around here.  The air is crisp, the sun is shining, and the small amount of rain we have gotten has felt cool and clean.  I. Love. Fall.







One of my favorite fall time activities is apple picking.  I have fond memories of this from my childhood....climbing trees and silently eating apples while watching the people below me fill their buckets.  Macintosh.  Yum.  Apple after apple.  Drinking cider in the barn before piling into the car and heading home to bake mass amounts of apple pie.

Apple picking isn't quite the same out on the west coast in 2010 as it was in Vermont in 1985.  Oh no....not even close.  There are about 20 different varieties of apples to choose from (at one single orchard), the trees are pruned for easy picking (which means you can't climb them), you can actually drive around the property in golf carts, and you don't even need to pick the apples yourself (in fact, they prefer if you buy a bag to go).  Although quite different from how I remember it as a kid, it still remains a necessary fall time outing.