We took Andrew to our local apple picking place, Mills Apple Farm and he had a blast finding the right apple, conducting a train and riding behind a tractor.

He really enjoys the small locomotive that you can drive yourself. It is run by a battery-powered electric motor. It puffs smoke and has a whistle and a bell for him to ring ad he takes it around a little circle track. Around the track, animals are on display including some donkeys, turkeys, ducks, and rabbits that you can also feed. 

They used to make a lot more things with their apples such as cider and other baked goods, but a fire a few years ago burned their main building down, although they are making attempts to come back. You can still get fruit pies and baked cookies in the small shop they have set up along with jams from area farms.

 In the middle of the train yard is 1/2 sized recreation of the Lunar Landing that has a continual play of the landing in stereo. Kids can climb up inside and adjust instruments just like the astronauts. Andrew loves doing this. 

They have a bucking horse like swings, some tricycles the kids can drive and then a caged area. You go through this cage maze that includes slides and figure your way out. It is much more fun than it sounds for the kids.

Out to the Apple Orchard

Then after he is done playing we go apple picking. Each year it is different, this year the Granny Smith apples were ripe. These are David’s favorite so this was a special treat for him. We went up and down the paths picking out the best ones.

The farmer says every time, “If you want to have one in the field, find one that might have a bad area on it then wipe it off and you can take some bites.”

We usually do that to get a sense of how they are tasting this year. 

Andrew was really into apple picking and loved going around with me and twisting them off and handing them to David who had the bag. 

This was a busy day for them, they had four wagons together to take families out. One year we were out on an off day and we were in a hay wagon, which he found fun.

You don’t pay for the ride out but pay for the bag of apples before you head out. I like this since it gets the payment done beforehand.

They also had the pumpkin patch ready so we headed over to that section. The wagon driver will come over and pick you up from there. We usually go to another pumpkin patch for these, but since we were here and it was just in the other field decided to go and ahead and get some. They were not big pumpkins, but with Andrew, smaller was fine so he could carry them himself and wait for the wagon.

When we got back we let Andrew play some more and check out the animals. It began to rain so that was our signal to head out with apples and some pumpkins for Halloween!