The Bounty Of Apple Picking

Our yearly apple-picking tradition helped us usher in the month of September!  

Apple picking is my favorite of all our "picking" traditions (there are strawberries, blueberries, peaches, apples, and pumpkins). Pete and I started this almost a decade ago when we were just newlyweds. As a matter of fact, now that I type that out, the first time we picked apples was in 2012 just before we were engaged. We were in traveling to see each other every weekend, meeting in his home. He was driving in from wherever his job had him at the moment and I was driving up from Virginia Tech where I was finishing up my last semester. And we decided to find some apples for picking to fill an autumn Saturday together. We made a pie that night with a cinnamon sugar crust that we burned! 

So it's been a full ten years of us finding an orchard to pluck the roundest apples for baking, snacking, and turning into apple butter. As the years have passed, we have added our brood to the tradition, which has made it all the sweeter. Their excitement over it, double my thrill. 

This weekend we stopped at FT Valley Orchard in Sperryville. The weather showed overcast skies - my very favorite for a fall day. However, those clouds disappeared immediately upon our arrival to the orchard, making way for a hot sun to shine down on us. While not the most ideal weather for picking, we ended up with pounds upon pounds of Jonagolds and a few Crimson Golds. I've got plans to bake with these beauts this afternoon, and I cannot wait!