An apple a day...

Growing up in San Diego, my favorite annual trip was always up to Julian to pick apples. But I live a few hours from Julian now, and haven't been in a while.

Last year, I road tripped out to a new apple-pickin' spot called Oak Glen. It was a fun day, made even better by snow falling on us the whole time.

I was excited to return this year, as was Mark, until I told him we had to leave at 7:30 a.m. (Saturday is my sleep-in day, and consequently, his video game marathon morning.) He grudgingly got up, took his time getting ready, then refused to sleep one wink in the car. It was gonna be a looooooooong ride...

As we navigated the windy road up the mountain, I marveled at the gorgeous trees, covered in purple, yellow and red leaves. We've had an extended summer down by the beach--it was 90 degrees the day before!--and I'd forgotten it was actually autumn everywhere else. It was nice to see where fall had been hiding out from us.

Our destination was Willowbrook Farm. I'd signed up for a tour knowing full well there was only about a 50% chance Mark would enjoy it (which also meant a 50% chance he was gonna whine and drive me crazy). Luckily, Mark picked the Enjoy option.

Farmer Sheryl (yes, that's how she introduced herself) split us into small groups and sent us off to different parts of the farm. First stop for our little group was the tractor ride. We didn't actually ride ON the tractor, but behind it, in a bumpy, hay-filled little wooden trailer. It was hilarious! We climbed in, held on, and laughed as we took a big circular ride around the little tiny farm (one lap around the entire farm took about three minutes).

After the ride, we sampled apple and pumpkin butter (yum!), then blackberry and chokecherry preserves (eh). The kids liked that, but they liked the next part even better--pressing fresh apple cider!

There were two presses, and the kids took them over. They were so excited to drop apples in, turn the crank, and watch the pulverized mash squeeze out cider. Mark jumped right in there with the little kids.

"We've gotta do this at home!" he called out to me. I just smiled and gave him a thumbs up. I watched the guy take a bucket of 30-40 apples and grind them into a gallon of cider, and I realized the novelty would wear off pretty quickly for my lazy little Mark. 

Animals were another highlight for the kids. We learned all about bees and making honey, which was really interesting. The kids pet a miniature horse and fed chickens, which I knew all about, thanks to my friend Kelley. (When Farmer Sheryl asked how many eggs a chicken lays a day, I immediately thought, "One every 25 hours.")
 
The kids chased around the most gigantic bunny I've ever seen. He wasn't even a full-grown bunny, either--he was only five months old! (That's one big baby.)

But of course, these were city kids, and their favorite animal was a stray cat wandering around the farm looking for food. (Or chickens. Little stinker tried to sneak into the coop!)

A wild Fernando cat!

After a good hand-washing, we sampled more food--this time, caramel apples. I thought Mark would looooooove these, but he wasn't impressed. He liked the cider better--of course he did, it was $14 a gallon! Kid's got fillet Mignon taste on my ground hamburger budget.

Mark liked the animals, but what he really wanted to do was pick apples. The apples were low enough to pick directly from the tree by hand, but what fun is that? Mark wanted to go higher. He grabbed an apple picker and set about searching for the highest apples he could reach.

It took us about 40 minutes to pick a dozen apples--Mark suddenly turned into an apple connoisseur. He picked each apple with the utmost care, twisting it gently as though it were made of glass. He then inspected the fruit carefully--any with bruises or worm holes were unceremoniously tossed into the reject basket. Our rejects slowed considerably once I pointed out the "worm holes" were really caused by the prongs on the apple picker.

By the time we filled a five pound bag of apples, the tour was over. We drove up the road a bit, stopping at a favorite orchard from last year. It's famous for little donuts  served piping hot, which you can watch them make. We split a bag, then did a cider tasting. Mark informed me he was absolutely not hungry for lunch after all that. I wasn't hungry either; after the caramel apple, cider, and donuts, I actually felt a little sick. I had that gnarly after-the-fair feeling, after you've eaten too much junk food. I vowed to eat salad for dinner.

And so, our car loaded with apples and cider, we headed home.

"We've gotta do that again next year," Mark said, as we wound our way down the mountain. 

I wholeheartedly agreed.