It's Fall in NY

We moved to Skaneateles last December, which means we started our life here in the worst of weather, and have now been able to enjoy a beautiful summer... but this past week marked the first day of fall and New York seems obligated to act the part. The trees are starting to show some color, which makes me both excited and nervous (snow is now in sight).

I'm determined to enjoy fall in New York though. We've never lived anywhere that promised such beautiful scenery, and I like the smell of wood fireplaces burning somewhere nearby. Note: we tried a "test fire" last week when it was down to about 50 degrees at night and seriously regretted it as our house heated up to about 80 degrees inside, so all future fires need to wait for consistently colder temperatures. We tried to partake in the maple syrup festivals of the spring, but got detoured viewing waterfalls in Ithaca, and we tried to go strawberry picking in the summer, but the local farm was picked out far too quickly. So I put my foot down about going apple picking in the fall. I scouted out the best apple farm, Beak & Skiff, which happened to have a distillery and cider mill too... so the promise of apple vodka and hard cider tasting + apple picking got Tom on board for the adventure.

The parking lot should have been our first clue, it was overrun with children hyped up on carmel apples. The lines themselves were longer than the "hay ride" behind a tractor to the rows of ripe Gala and Macintosh apples, but in the end it was worth it. Obviously it made sense to join in on the carmel apple eating while we waited for our tractor to arrive.

We couldn't find one of the coveted ladders to climb up to the best apples, so the first 30 minutes of our picking experience consisted of trying to come up with creative ways to get to the good apples, which included "toss an apple at another apple", "shake the tree and see what falls", and the good old basic "jump". None of which were at all successful by the way.

Have you read the recent news story about the moose in Sweden who got drunk off of fermenting apples and got caught up in a tree? We may not have been eating fermenting apples, but somehow after about an hour of apple picking we got a bit goofy and had enough fun laughing at ourselves that people nearby may have that we'd been sampling the hard cider. Tom left one hanging apple with a bite out of it, I tried to hide in the branches that started 4 feet above the ground, and trying to run around rows of apples without stepping on rotting ones results in a crazy dance like movement.

Eventually we did locate a ladder, and took home around 16 pounds of fruit. Ironically, Tom doesn't really like apples, but I've enjoyed at least one a day for breakfast, as well as finding new recipes to bake and cook them in. I'd love to hear about more recipes if anyone has some.... I think I've only got about a week left before I need to start worrying about them rotting!