Today's post is brought to you by...

...the letter "A". For apple that is!

I made a gutsy move and chose to bring both the toddlers to the apple orchard by myself. Gasp! I was just hoping and praying they'd sit in the wagon for the most part. Our destination was, yet again, the wonderful Butternut Farm in Farmington, NH. Jonamac's, MacIntosh and Ginger Gold's are ready for picking now and through the weekend. MacIntosh apples should be around for the next couple weeks. Note that Butternut Farm has a great automated daily message of what's ripe for picking if you call (603) 335-4705. I highly suggest you call prior to going over to see what's ripe and check the picking hours.

Anyway, the trip went over surprisingly well and the kids got out of the wagon a few times to pick some apples and plums. Here they are in their wagon enjoying apples (I must have had 10 apples with bite marks in them!)Like I said earlier I also picked some plums, which I have no clue what I'm going to do with. Are there any good plum recipes? Maybe I'll just eat them! Haha! :)

One of my goals it to perfect a homemade pie crust recipe so I can make an amazing homemade apple pie. Does anyone have any pie crust recipes that are tried and true that they want to share? I haven't decided which recipe from my cookbooks I want to try yet. But first I need to get a pastry blender to cut in my butter! The knife and fork method didn't work too well on the peach crisp I made!

So after this rainy weekend is over you should head over to the farm and pick some of the first apples of the season. I'm actually excited for fall now and it was actually FUN to take the kids to the orchard and share with them the love of apple picking (and eating while picking) in New England.

Ok, I'll leave you with a few more pics of my kiddos (yes there are also sheep and chickens to visit at Butternut Farm). And don't forget to check out the apple chart I posted about. It'll help you to know which apples to pick for eating, baking or both.