Apple Pickin' and Pumpkin Choosin' With the Family Updated With Photos (Scroll down)

By the time many of you read this, I'll be enjoying the 39 degree Maine morning out in an apple orchard like this one. Neat, huh? I am taking Heather, Issy and Bailey to not only pick apples, but to pick a couple of pumpkins for Halloween also. It's our first time to do this kind of stuff so it should be a lot of fun, especially watching the kids be kids. This orchard charges no admission and apples straight off the trees are just a dollar a pound. Another cool thing is that when you park upon arrival, the orchard staff pick you up in a hayride-type wagon and off you go into the orchard for apple pickin'! You are allotted a certain amount of time to pick apples, 15 minutes, I think, and here comes the hay ride guy again and it's away to the pumpkin patch! Heather is taking her Blackberry and will snap and post some pictures right from the orchard, so look for them on Facebook. A good time is to be had by all.

UPDATE: We ended up with 22 pounds of McIntosh apples and 2 pumpkins for the kids to eventually destroy. Heather and I had a great time and the kids had even more fun than we did.


UPDATE WITH PHOTOS!

A Quarter Mile of Apples on One Row!

Issy : I see one!

Bailey: To eat or not to eat, that is the question

Maine Minutiae : A Visit toThe Pumpkin Patch

My wife is a holiday freak. That's not a bad thing. She's always looking for a reason to decorate the house with whatever day is being celebrated. Her theory is, "Honey, it's National Vampire Bat Day! Let's leave some tiny containers full of blood outside so they won't have to find the neighbor's cat to have supper tonight!" Then she draws a blood sample from each member of the family and afterwards gives us a cup of orange juice. As inconvenient as this can be, especially for National Body Piercing Day (I won't go there), from time to time she comes up with a good idea. And while we were watching TV the other night and a commercial came on for a place called Harvest Hill Farms where you can go wander the countryside and pick out your own pumpkin for Halloween. We are going there this weekend. It should be a lot of fun, especially for the kids and even more especially for Bailey the 3 year old. On the property, Harvest Hill also has carved out a maze in a big ass corn field, which should be a blast for Daddy, if you catch my drift. (insert evil laugh here) I plan on taking my camera so I can capture the look of abject horror of joy on the kids' faces after our family adventure through the corn maze. Somewhere near Harvest Hill farms is a "you pick 'em" apple orchard which means lots of apple picking experience for the girls while Daddy dreams of home made apple pie. After all, the family that picks together, sticks together, or something like that. I'll post the pictures I take while we're there and will eventually post the ones of my little girls when the staff at Harvest Hill Farms calls and let's me know that they (the girls) made it out of the corn field maze. Good times.

Maine Minutiae : Pumpkins Ahoy?

The state of Maine has a long (and I mean a long) history with boats and boating. Bath, Maine is called The City of Ships for cryin' out loud. One reason why this is so is Bath Iron Works. BIW built 83 destroyers for the US Navy...and that was just in World War II! You take that kind of boat building skill and a giant pumpkin and what do you get? The Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta! I'm sure you get the "pumpkinfest" part of that, but "regatta"? First to the "pumpkin" part. I got this from the event's website with the results of the 2009 Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta :

"Highlights of last year’s festival included a big parade complete with Maine’s new record pumpkin (weighing 1,210 pounds!) and its grower Elroy Morgan and Togus the Cat.  The Pumpkin Dessert Contest had 18 fine entries – all available for tasting.  There were tons of children’s games and a free matinée.  24 giant pumpkins were carved, painted, or both, by artists of all ages.  Pumpkins of various sizes were thrown, hurled, shot, and dropped thanks to record-holding punkin chunkers and catapulters, and a 150-foot crane taking aim on a retired police cruiser!" Imagine the fun! I mean, you've got kids' games, a parade, punkin chunkin' and pumpkin desserts. All of those activities are well and good, but it's the "regatta" part of the festival's name that piqued my curiosity. I immediately thought of sail boats, lobster boats and whatnot, but, boy, was I wrong. The "regatta" is for pumpkin boats! Look closely at the embedded photo. Those two people are pump-kayaking! There will also be motorized pumpkin boats! I have mentioned before that Mainers are a hardy and creative bunch, but this makes everything else innovative and creative about Maine seem like child's play. You gotta love something like this. Just think...if Gilligan and the other castaways had only discovered pumpkins on that desert isle, TV history would turned out much differently. And we'd have Damariscotta, Maine to thank for it.