Hello! Happy Monday! What a gorgeous weekend it was for the most part. Friday evening was nice, but Saturday was a day to write home about. While it was a bit windy, the temperature was perfect for a mid-September day. I wore a short set romper and felt perfectly dressed meandering about my day. We had tentative plans to visit my sister in Ottawa, but had to cancel due to season soccer photos happening this weekend.
Saturday, I took my two youngest apple picking to Carluke Orchards which is about a twenty minute drive for us. It’s the start of apple season, so there were only two apple species available to pick, but that was perfect for us. We loaded ourselves up, wagon in tow and headed down the orchard enjoying the view of all the rows of apple trees.
It was so hard not to want to pull out my phone to capture photos. My youngest loves Pick Your Own fruits/produce, so he really enjoyed this trip. Teenagers on the other hand … iffy, but my middle-born, newly 17-year old enjoyed it too. They both shared in pulling the wagon and they both enjoyed picking their own apples. The good ones were mostly at the top, so my older son enjoyed the feat of grabbing those perfect apples at the higher branches.
What I love about “field trips” (that’s what we call them) like these are that they get the boys away from their screens and outside to enjoy some fresh air and I know all too well how much time they like to spend in front of their screens. I tried to drag the trip out, stopping in at the orchard bakery for a few treats.
Once we finished up at the orchard, we decided it would be a good time to fill our grumbling bellies, so we grabbed lunch at The Egg & I, which is basically breakfast all day. I love home fries, so I loaded those up with plenty of plant-based goodies like sautéed mushrooms, guacamole and salsa. Mmmm so good. It’s gradually getting easier to find plant-based options at restaurants these days. It was much harder when I first started out as a plant-based eater twelve years ago.
Once breakfast … it was really a late lunch by that time, was finished, we darted off to the soccer field to get our season soccer photos taken that I mentioned earlier. Game nights are Tuesdays and Thursdays, so this was an extra event that we needed to fit in on our already busy weekend. I’m glad we managed to fit it in, but would rather have been visiting with my sister. Sometimes life just gets in the way of our plans.
So there we were with a 20 lb bag of apples and lots to do, but I didn’t want to waste the day away cooped up inside. What a better way to spend a warm September day than to take a hike! I put all the apples in the sink to soak while I was gone. I managed to entice my 11-year old into coming along with me. This was a hike that we had not done before, but is literally a 5-minute walk from our front door. Hamilton is a city full of hiking trails including segments of The Bruce Trail which is 900kms long and runs from the Niagara region to the Tobermory region. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the top of the hill walking along the path, but we stopped here and there to catch our breaths and to grab a drink of water. Once we got to the top, we could see the views over the city and across the lake to Toronto. The walk back down the escarpment’s hill was much faster. Being among all those trees with high canopies is a great feeling. We are so lucky to be near such wonderful resources like this.
Once we arrived home, I started up with the apples. I had plans to dehydrate some and do some baking as well. Dehydrating took longer than I hoped it would. Even though we’ve had our dehydrator for over 10 years, it was MY first time using it, so I had to do some on-line research. Turns out, it’s super easy. I have an Excalibur 9-tray Dehydrator. It saves so much time because there is so much more room to lay out apple slices. Prepping the apples is what took the longest … peeling, coring and slicing very thinly so they would dry faster.
AND THEN my youngest and I started baking apple turnovers very late, sometime around eight-thirty in the evening. We finally finished around eleven-thirty. We were both exhausted. We concluded that apple turnovers take a long time to make and we aren’t going to make them again. We are going to stick to apple crumble. So odd since I enjoy making apple pies and I don’t find they take very long to make at all. It’s a learning process for sure.
Sunday, was a lazy day for us. The skies were mostly overcast, so we stayed indoors, except my oldest son graced our presence with a visit home from university … kinda. He caught a ride home with a friend of his who also plays soccer with him here at home. I met him at the soccer field to watch him play. It was so nice to see him. He’s only been gone a week, but I missed him.
Thank you for reading my blog today. This past weekend was a busy one. I have so many apples now and I love it. Apple season is definitely one of my favourite seasons. Please, if you will, subscribe to my mailing list so you will be sure to receive weekly updates. Thank you!
