I thought I just lost this post, but after praying about it, I found it again. Thank you, Lord. You knew I don't have the extra time to type it a second time. I hope everyone enjoys!
If you've been an avid McKinstryMoments blog follower, you may remember my post about picnicking in a pumpkin patch last fall. Since then, we have returned to Hartland Orchards on multiple occasions for other beautiful adventures at their farm. In June, Natalia told me about all the "pick your own" fruit Hartland offers, so one morning Caleb and I took a mommy/son bonding trip to the farm to pick blueberries. I thought it would be something Caleb would enjoy since he did well picking apples and grapes last year at some other local places we tried. He did do a pretty good job at first, but blueberries are much smaller and took quite a bit more time to fill up a container than apples. Caleb picked several but then, between the sun starting to beat down on us and his toddler energy kicking in, it made it pretty much impossible to pick any more. Rather than scolding him and making him stand right beside me while I filled the basket, I decided to let him go look at some baby birds the girls working there had saved that morning and then went home with our container partially filled. It was his day after all! He was much more interested in the blueberries again once we got back to our air conditioned house and he was sitting in his booster seat with a bowl of sweet fruit to pop in his mouth.
A few days later, Stacey brought the twins up for a visit on Granny's birthday and we decided to take another trip to the orchard all together. Caleb, who was of course as a pro now, focused on making sure Granny knew you pick the blue berries - not the green ones! The kids were interested in it for a while and then started getting restless, but because there were so many of us that day, we still got a pretty good collection of blueberries, and more importantly, some fond memories together. Even Hadley got to come this time, although she did more snoozing than blueberry picking.
(Side note: Granny also bought some peaches that she shared with us. Dave says that now the grocery store peaches just seem terrible in comparison, so if you like peaches and live locally, check them out next summer!)
As fall approached, I was itching to get to a pumpkin patch. Since Hartland is so close and they have so many activities, we decided to go back to check it out again a couple weeks ago. We opted for the sake of time, and since it was chilly, to just check out the pumpkin patch area instead of doing all the festivities they had to offer. We didn't have any specific mission to accomplish since we'd already bought our pumpkins at the Farmer's Market, so our trip was a very leisurely one. Caleb just wandered through the patch checking out the pumpkins and fussing at the corn stalks because they were in his way and he couldn't go any farther. The most fascinating part to this boy was all the rotting pumpkins. I guess since it was close to the end of the season, and they say that the pumpkins were ready early this year, there were quite a few decaying. I thought it was gross but my son was the optimist, looking at the glass half full and using the opportunity to check out the pumpkins' guts. Hadley, in the mean time, snuggled close to her daddy just taking it all in. As we were about to leave, we bought some apples. Caleb decided the best method for taking them home was using one of the pumpkin wagons. After I convinced him that we didn't have to take each apple out of the box and put it in the wagon separately, he hauled them away for me
I wonder what we'll get into next year at Hartland Orchards....Looking forward to it.
Very Cute.
ReplyDelete