The Princess and I went apple picking yesterday. Yes, I know it’s October and time for pumpkins, but we wanted to go apple picking. Why? Because we’d never done it, and I wanted some apples for baking – and to eat of course.

So, earlier this week, I asked The Violet Fig and It’s Come To This where they thought I should go. I remembered them mentioning someplace previously on Twitter. They directed me to Mercier Orchards way up in North Georgia. It was going to be a bit of a drive for us, but they assured me it was worth it. And, they were right.

We got up to the orchard about 10:30, and I am SO glad we got there when we did. By the time we were leaving at around 12:45, it was REALLY busy. Like overwhelmingly so.

We purchased our bags for picking and got in line for the tractor. It took us up into the orchards with a guide giving us the history of the orchard and letting us know about the type of apples available for picking today. Who knew there were so many types of apples!?

They have each row of trees labeled with the type. Even though we were so late in the season, there were still plenty of apples left. We just had to go back a bit farther into the rows.

The Princess had a great time filling her bag that she was going to take to Grandma later in the day. She made sure that Grandma had quite the variety in her bag. I filled several bags with apples for us to eat and many to use for baking.

Once we finished picking our apples, we hopped back on the tractor ride and were taken back to the parking lot and store. Then, we went inside the country store to find just about anything you could ever need that has anything to do with apples. The Princess and I walked around for an hour investigating all the different areas of the store. We had a GREAT time playing the “Hey, look at this!” game – it’s one of our favorite games. We bought some more apples so that Grandma and I could both make applesauce and some small apple pies that look just oh so very yummy.

All in all, it was a FABULOUS time picking apples with the Princess. We’re both very glad we went, and I’m thinking that we will make it an annual event. (And, we discovered that they have U-pick strawberries in April. Those are the Princess’s FAVORITE. We will definitely be there for that.)

What will I do with all these apples you ask. Well, I’ll be investigating using some of these recipes for sure!

Life As Mom: Ultimate Recipe Swap – Apples

Once A Month Mom: Apple Cinnamon Pull Apart Rolls (I actually made these yesterday. I’m going to make some for the freezer.)

Apple Cake (Actually, I don’t need to investigate this one. It’s one of my favorites, with some tweaks.)

Did you go apple picking this year? What are you doing with your apples?

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