A Trip to the Afton Apple Orchard

One of our fall traditions is going to the Afton Apple Orchard to pick apples and pumpkins, play with the animals, and take a hayride around the fields.

Last year Ava was too little to really know what was going on, so we were very excited to have her experience it this year. We didn't want to go too late in the season as we noticed last year that the apples are picked over by that time. When decent weather was in the forecast for this past weekend, we knew it was time to go!

We had to make a few stops before we actually got on the road...I think Ava's getting bored waiting for us to start moving again!


When we finally arrived, the first thing we did was check out the petting zoo. Ava absolutely LOVED it! She immediately screamed (happy scream, not scared scream) and ran up to the fence to pet the animals. Even the bigger donkey didn't scare her. Notice how I'm trying to teach her to pet the animal nicely...

And notice how she still wanted to stick her finger up his nose? Thank goodness for hand sanitizer!

The goats were more her size - she wasn't scared of them at all. In fact, right after we got to the petting zoo, she picked up a piece of discarded animal food from the ground, and immediately tried to feed it to a goat. After that, the goats really liked Ava!

I was trying to show her how to feed the animals with her palm facing up and flat, but she didn't quite get the concept (or she wanted to do it her way...it's hard to tell with her sometimes!) In this picture, you can see that her fingers are almost completely in the goat's mouth...and I'm freaking out next to her! I was so scared that her little fingers were going to be nibbled right off!

After we cleaned up from the petting zoo, we hopped on the hayride to take us out to the various orchards. Our tractor driver was nice enough to take this picture for us.

After the initial loud noise from the tractor, Ava seemed to enjoy the hayride.

We finally decided to hop off the hayride as it was preparing to make another loop through the fields, so we were able to pick Sweet 16s, Cortlands, and Honey Golds. Ava even joined in the fun and picked her very own apple. Scott let her take a few bites off of his apple - we knew those teeth would come in handy for something GOOD eventually!

This was a very fun trip to the orchard, and we're already looking forward to doing it again next year. Now I just need to get some ideas of what to do with the 10lbs of apples we picked!