Pickin' Apples

Hurricane Earl was forcasted to hit the coast of Maine last Friday and be gone mid Saturday. As the hurricanes hit the cold waters oft he Atlantic they usually loose strength and just turn into a good rain storm but sometime still bring some heavy winds and strong tides. With the early spring and hot summer the apple crops were ready about 2 weeks ahead of time. The limbs of the trees are weighed right down with nice big ripe apples, waiting to be harvested, just in time for Earl to come along.

We hadn't gone apple picking since we've lived in Maine but since the girls have taken some interest in our garden this year I though it would be fun to pick some apples and attempt to make a pie from scratch(ish). So I looked online and found a list of apple orchards near us. There was one in Brewer and one in Monroe, we headed to Brewer Friday morning but soon found out that the orchard was no longer in business so we went on about our errands and planned to hit the Monroe orchard later in the day. It was about 4:30 by the time we got everything done and headed out on our apple picking adventure. We drove and drove and drove and soon went right though Monroe into Brooks without seeing any signs of an apple orchard. We stopped and Chris asked someone if he knew where it was and he directed us to the Maine-ly Apple Orchard in Dixmont. It was 5:20 by the time we got there and their sign said they closed at 5:00. Ugh! Thankfully the man who own the orchard waved us in and let us pick some apples anyway!

It didn't take too long to fill a bucket with 2 little girls picking all the huge apples on the trees and the branches were so heavy they hung almost down to the groud. With our bucket full, we headed back to pay we got some fresh pressed apple cider, then headed back home, all munching on crunchy apples on the way.

When we got home, I cooked supper: steak, corn on the cob and asparagus with baked apples for dessert. Saturday morning we got up and peeled apples for our very first homemade apple pie, which turned out delicious!