Vegan MoFo Day 7 - Apples

I took the kids apple picking at a little organic orchard in our local mountain town. My mother in law came along too and it was nice to have an extra set of hands to help out. It took about 1 hour and 20 minutes to get there, and the kids were great. The kids had a lot of fun running through the orchard, picking apples, eating apples, romping through the dirt, and then they got to help make fresh apple cider! We picked 4 different kinds of apples: arkansas black, red delicious, granny smith, and a mystery variety (the trees were planted by previous owners so they aren't sure what it is). The kids liked the red delicious and mystery apples best, while I enjoyed the granny smith and arkansas black. Now I have 5+ pounds of organic freshly picked apples to play with. Some of them are tiny as the kids really like "baby" apples, so those will just be for snacking, but I am planning to make a pie. Chris loves apple pie. I like it a bit, but prefer cakes and cookies over pie. I am in the mood for it though so I'm giving myself a weekend project of apple pies, and while I am at it, I think I'll make some lemon bars with all of those lemons I still have. The kids are really into cinnamon apple sauce, so I'll probably have to make a little of that too. The best part of the trip for me (other than seeing their smiling faces throughout the day) was that they both fell asleep on the way home. I was pretty tired myself by the time we got home AFTER an hour of soccer practice. Wow, long day.


Athena turning the wheel of the cider press, I'll leave out the part about where I squished Rowan's finger in the wheel when trying to help him have a turn.
Brother and sister under the apple tree.
Apple boy. He was really loving it today, "in his element".