Apple Picking at Hatch's Orchard

We headed to the apple orchard with our local homeschool group this past Friday. We were blessed with beautiful weather and a good turn out. Mrs. Hatch gave the group a lesson on apple trees. We found it interesting that next year's blossoms are already on the tree and that if you aren't careful when you pick you can actually break them off.



Here Hannah weighs the basket before picking. Then it was off to pick. The orchard was full of beautiful apples, and a few bees. We picked a great mix of macs, cortlands, empire and northern spy, forty pounds total. Hopefully that will give us quite a bit of apple sauce for the pantry and pie filling for the freezer



And of course we had to give them a try. Rebekah thought apple eating was the best homeschool field trip we have been on in a long time. I lost count of the number of apples she ate.



Then we hiked up to the field above the orchard and had a picnic. The view was breathtaking as you can see.