Pumpkin Picking

Over the past six years we haven't created much of a tradition about where we buy pumpkins- we have picked them up at the grocery store, farm stands on the way home from Granddad's, pumpkin patches- all over the place, but we do have a tradition of buying pumpkins. 

Pumpkins are one of the more labor intensive traditions I have forced on my family- mostly labor intensive for me because I do 90% of the pumpkin carving and gutting (except Cordelia actually carved her own this year!). However, I really love the non permanent art that is pumpkin carving, and I find pumpkins just as fun to carve as it is to watch the squirrels eat them.  

This year my sister Shauna took the girls and I out to Larriland Farm to pick our pumpkins, and while we were there we picked apples and broccoli. 

Of course I took this opportunity to dress the girls in the matching shirts my mom gave them! 

Adeline enjoyed crawling in the dirt, putting everything in her mouth, and being dubious about the pumpkin cart.

Cordelia enjoyed picking everyone else's pumpkins, huffing,  

squishing her sister, 

and playing with the slugs. She has always really enjoyed slugs. 

Adeline was perplexed by the fact that we wanted her to take the apples off the trees when she could just as easily pick the apples up off the ground (this is a tree apple not a rotten ground apple, for the record).

Cordelia is concerned that there will be more pictures of Adeline than there are of her- so she really likes to jump in Adeline's pictures. 

By the end of our trip both girls were perplexed that we didn't just pick apples out of these buckets! Fruit and veggie picking is hard work! 

Does your family have a pumpkin picking tradition? If you are curious about how we carved our pumpkins (this year and in years past) check out the hashtag #tocknellpumpkins on instagram. 

Apple Picking

My sister Shauna is really wonderful at pretty much everything- in fact she is so awesome that as a younger sister I really have to try not to be annoyed by it. She sews, builds things, knits, crochets, cooks, reads super fast, is great at math- and she cans and preserves things. I posted before about our trip to pick strawberries, and previous to that we went for blueberries. On Tuesday we went to go pick apples and broccoli; this trip I think has been my favorite so far! 

Shauna, Cordelia and I brought my nephew Charles and my dear friend Patrick along with us for our adventure. We went to a different farm this time, which was further away than the one we normally go to, but the prices were better and I really dug the vibe. (We went to Larriland Farm and you can check them out here). I normally don't buy anything from the little stores attached to the orchards but at Larriland I picked up a bunch of stuff for dinner for the rest of the week. 

Larriland grows many of their apple varieties similar to the way grapes are grown so most of the apples are easy to reach. I think apple and broccoli picking is more enjoyable too because the weather was beautiful! We weren't sweating like crazy like we do during strawberry and blueberry seasons. I just love the fall weather- however Miss C seams to have allergy problems this time of year, she has been stuff nose and red eyed since this trip. 

Picking enough broccoli for everyone didn't take hardly any time at all because broccoli is gigantic! I had no idea it grew so big. We tried to grow broccoli in our garden but only got tiny little guys. 

  

I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of in love with fall and I can't wait to make a pie with all of my apples!