On the gorgeous afternoon of October 27, we hopped in the car and headed south to an apple orchard VERY near our new home (you can't live in a place called Apple Valley and not have an apple orchard within a few miles of you, right?). Of course, many of the trees had been picked bare up to about 8' in height (requiring ladders or a bevy of the pole-basket-pickers they had on hand to succeed) but with our two small ones, it wasn't about the picking on this trip. We bought a few bags of delicious apples in the store and were happy to get them but unsurprisingly, the apples were an afterthought for O and Lo. For them, the time was about sitting on tractors (big and small), riding the tractor flat bed on an abbreviated orchard tour, solving the hedge maze (and going back through it again and again), and of course doing what they could to enjoy the relatively safe obstacle of a giant pile of straw bales set aside for kids to play on.
Owen made some friends instantly (the way kids do) and they climbed and jumped with childish happiness for quite some time. Then, they created an imaginary game where two of them were monkeys and one was a cheetah and the hungry predator had to chase the scared simians all over the landscape until he caught them for lunch. Some might call it tag but I think the Wild Kingdom flavor of it added a little something special. Don't you?
PS - Besides the obvious fruit connection, I wanted to share that the title of this post came to me because Owen has recently discovered the magic of knock knock jokes. That said, he still doesn't quite "get" how they work. He's getting there, though.
What a perfect day! You can just feel the fun bubbling out! You will be so happy to have this photo/journal record. I wonder if we have a future farmer there? Well, guess you have to do more than drive a tractor! Glad everyone got in the pics. Nani
ReplyDelete