Family Fun in the pumpkin patch

Pumpkin picking is another Fall event I love!  I love it so much that yes even though we do it usually at the same farm as apple picking I usually do it on a day all by it self. Ok truth told, I need to do these events on different days for all the energy involved.  Most people go to the store look in a cardboard bin pick a pumpkin from the top and are done. Not us! No certainly not. I need to have a fresh pumpkin from the farm. You know the whole experience, complete with coming home with donuts and cider or it just leaves me flat like Christmas in Florida.

MJ has a great time picking pumpkins and finding "the right pumpkin." It reminds me of the "Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" which thanks to the magic of Itunes we watched that night!

MeadowBrooke is in Wappingers and is the cutest place not to big not to small just right as Mama Bear would say. 

 

Fall Apples

Fall doesn't come with the first day of school. Fall comes when the first crisp, cool night settles in across the Hudson Valley, after the long hot summer finally lets go.  This is when I start to anticipate all the Season brings with it.  All the Festivals, the apples the pumpkins, the smells, the tastes, the activities and the difference in the sun shine, cooler temperature, and the Holidays are about truly spending time with your family. Fall comes in late September and moves in slowly usually without much notice, until bam you are in the midst of Fall. MMMM lovely luscious Fall. 

New York produces some of the finest apples after all we are known as the Big Apple state. Every year I have been home in the Fall it has been tradition to go apple picking.

This year due to a storm in the Spring the apple crop in Dutchess County suffered this season and was smaller than usual driving the prices higher.

We go every year to an adorable place called Meadowbrooke Farm in Wappingers Falls. They are small, clean, well maintained and really really do a nice job. They have an orchard, a store and a part like a petting zoo that has goats, chickens roaster, and a few rabbits.

M.J. had a blast picking the apples.  It made a nice fall outing.  He loved the chickens.  The Farmers Market carries local and organic produce, honey, syrup, homemade cider doughnuts, and cider.