Pickin'!

Okay, I admit it.  I'm a picker.  Come from a long line of pickers.  Learned at my daddy's knee and grew up pickin'.  Sometimes it seemed like a chore, but as I got older, I learned to enjoy it.  In college, I couldn't be bothered, but I got back into it once I was settled out of school.  Now, I'm raising a whole brood of pickers myself! 

Last weekend, we had a pickin' extravaganza with some family friends!

But instead of the beans, peppers, corn and tomatoes I grew up picking, or the blueberry, blackberry strawberry and peach pickin' found around Charleston.....we went to NC to pick APPLES!

What?

Well, what did you think I was talking about?  I love to pick fruits and berries.....and veggies.  That's all, folks! 

APPLE PICKIN' AT SKY TOP!

The best part....besides finally finding apples to pick, was hanging with good friends!

And, I am not even kidding about it being hard to find apples to pick.  I mean, you figure since you are at an apple orchard that you'd be able to walk out to the trees and start pickin' till your heart's content.  Am I right? 

Wrong! 

Totally wrong.  It was like finding a needle in a haystack!  In an apple orchard! Good thing we had a wagon for the wee ones, 'cause we did a whole lotta trekking around that apple orchard, just to find some apples. 

Someone thought he'd get to the apples faster this way!  Turned out to be a bad idea.  Who knew riding a wagon down hill in an orchard would turn out to be dangerous?!?!  Yeah well, we can't say much.....we picked our friends too!

And we did finally locate some delectables! 

They tried to give us the slip, but we are a tenacious group, I tell you!



If anybody was going to find apples it was going to be us, by golly!

Even if we had to climb the trees.....which is probably not actually allowed.  oops.

Of course, sometimes we barked up the wrong tree.

Like the Arkansas Black trees.

Whoever told Arkansas they can grow an apple, was way off base.

But, I'd say we figured out this apple pickin' business by the end of the day!

Of course it would have been way easier to just buy the bag-o-apples at the pack house and skip the whole orchard experience.  But, what fun would that have been?

I'm sure the 2 dozen hot apple cider doughnuts would not have tasted so good if it had not been a reward for our hard work....

Okay, that's a lie.

They would have been incredible anyway!