Where to Pick Apples

We visited Hurd's Family Farm, five miles south of New Paltz just down the road from the lower school building, Lenape, where our Fiona attends 5th grade. Friends were visitng from Brooklyn, and after showing off the house and then the town, we decided to show off the apple farm.

First on the agenda was the corn maze. Since Maeve was napping, Shirra stayed with her in the car (reversing our roles from when we went to a corn maze in Martha's Vineyard). I went with Emmett and our friends, whose son, Nick, is one of Emmett's best buddies. The two boys had a great time hampered tho they were by our frequent requests of them not to rush off, lest they get lost. Getting lost turns out not to have been much of an issue due to the frequent balding patches caused by the lateness of the season. The maze is usually green and lush, but by October, it's a bit brown and patchy. Still, the boys had a blast, and I think Fiona would have had fun had she not been apple picking with a friend off in Kingston.

After the maze, we headed for some apple picking of our own. Maeve had awakened, and she loved running about looking for trees that had not already been denuded of their fruit. I recommend gala and empire apples for eating, rome for baking.

Following the apples, we decided to head to the pumpkin patch. Maeve prefered to stay with me in the playground, which consisted mainly of a sandbox, a defunct tractor that kids could climb, and a series of tires from small to large that were half buried in the ground. Initially Maeve was quite tentative as she held my hand and traipsed from the small tires to the huge ones at the end. After about ten practice runs, however, our little two-and-a-half-year-old was able to run the course sans assistance despite her overly long hand-me-down dress.

The rest of our party returned eventually with a few pumpkins in hand. The three that Shirra had chosen weighed in at 40 lbs but cost only $20.

The whole afternoon (including the fruit we came home with) cost our family no more than $44.