Pickin' Apples

This afternoon we decided to take the scenic trip up to Flat Rock, NC to do a little apple picking at Sky Top. It was one of those weekends where we had been sitting around watching way too much football and just really needed to get out of the house and get some exercise and some nice fresh mountain air. Even though the apple orchard is in NC, it's only about a 30 minute drive from where we live in Greenville and it's such a pretty drive that you hardly realize it even takes that long.

We set out with our 1/2 bushel basket in hand and went frolicking through the rows and rows of apple trees ready to pick some big, ripe juicy Galas, McIntosh, Cortlands and Golden Delicious. Much to our dismay, the trees had been pretty picked over from the previous Labor Day weekend bash and we ended up with about 8 Golden Delicious and 3 McIntosh. Austin was a big help reaching the high ones but needed a rest after all that picking and asked us to pull him around in the wagon for awhile.

After trudging up and down the mountain for awhile in flip flops, on a 90 degree day, looking for apples to pick from the pretty much bare trees, we just decided we'd forget about the 11 pathetic ones we picked and buy a few dozen pre-picked Galas from the Sky Top store. We spent the rest of our time walking though the bamboo forest, watching and feeding the farm animals, eating yummy apple cider donuts and drinking apple cider slushies and taking plenty of fun pictures!

So while the apple picking was pretty much a bust, we still had a great time just being together outside in such a beautiful setting. I often forget just how close we are to the mountains and how pretty and peaceful it is up there. I hope we'll make many more trips this fall, especially back to Sky Top in mid-October when the yummy Fuji and Pink Lady apples are ready for picking!