Apple Picking

Sunday - October 3rd, 2010

Yucaipa, San Bernardino

Reached JP's house at precisely 6:15AM. Split into two cars, I have the two teenagers with me, while she has the 2 younger ones and her sister with her. We drove to Monrovia first to her cousin's place so she could take us all there, but there were fewer people coming than anticipated so we consolidated everyone into two cars, with mine adding her sister and her cousin's van consisting of the two younger kids and her cousin with her two young kids too.

It takes about an hour and a half to get to Yucaipa from Monrovia, to get to the orchard to be exact. I didn't know that apples are harvested in Fall along with raspberries and blackberries to name a few. We parked our cars right by the stores and since we were early, nothing's been set up yet but from afar we could see smokes coming from a grill by the outdoor kitchen and boy did it smell good.

So, we just strolled along and came to this trail leading to the orchard. There were a TON of apple trees with TONs of ripe apples waiting to be picked! I believe these are called the Arkansas Black, the darkest red on an apple that I've ever seen, they call it ruby red. But they were not ready to be harvested yet until end of October if I remember correctly.

There were signs saying no picking fruits from the tree, but there were no mention of anything picking apples that have already dropped onto the ground hehe so the kids picked up some good ones and with a quick rinse of water, the apple is ready to be eaten.

The trail lead us to a tiny forest, I guess you could call it that, with some pretty big trees which some are local to the area. Further down the trail, we discovered a small lake.

With a floating dock... maximum capacity: 10 person

And more apples on trees.

They also have Christmas trees...

As we came back from our little walk, we saw that more cars have arrived and the whole place was all set up and running. Everyone was getting hungry so we went to our cars and got our picnic baskets out along with all the gears. On the grounds, they have set up picnic tables, so that was fun to set up the table and all.

After finishing our early lunch, we checked to see what is there to do. There was a pumpkin patch, the kids stepped all over the pumpkins to take picture on top of a hay that was placed all the way at the fence. The owner wasn't too happy that he went inside the store and printed out two pieces of signs saying no stepping onto the pumpkins hehehe

Next to the patch, they set up a little shack with some weird looking equipment, meant for making cider. We watched as others tried it out. Seems like hard work and a lot of apples for just a few drops of cider. But, boy those ciders are delicious!

We also saw that they have a cart-ride drawn by Belgian horses. The horses were beautiful, felt sorry for them to be working non-stop shift, drawing the cart filled with about at least 10 adults/kids. It costs $5/adult, $3/kids. I didn't really enjoy the 'tour' because it was so dusty and the host who tag along at the end of the cart wasn't that entertaining. It was boring to say the least hehe but I think the kids enjoyed it.

After we got back from our ride which took roughly 30mins, we went into the store and sampled some apple cider, pumpkin bread which was SO delicious. They also have a variety of spreads and jams/preservatives made with some sort of combination with apples. I bought a loaf of the pumpkin bread, an apple pie and a bottle of cold cider.

There are other orchards within the area, so we drove to check out the other orchards. We stopped at one not too far away for apple picking.

Basically, you select a bag size, small, medium or large. There are signs posted, you pay for what you pick and if you decide to throw them after picking, you will be charge with theft. OMG, a bit siao. I guess just trying to protect their business. But, shit happens sometimes (most of the times). Oh, they also included instructions on how to properly pick apples...

So, I got really picky when picking. They tied different colored ribbons on each tree to differentiate the types. So, I just get one from each tree. Most of the apples have sap on them. There were a few incidents that when trying to pick the chosen apple, while trying to do so, I knocked other apples, obviously they were very ripe, that's why they fell off the stem so easily, right?

They also have some raspberries but most were gone, whatever we managed to find were small but they were sweet. I think people were picking and eating at the same time that's why they were out so quickly hehe oh yeah same goes with the apples, evidence was evident all over the place.

They also have corns.

Also tomatoes and zucchinis.

The farm that we went to also provide other forms of entertainment -- archery, knives throwing and wood chopper throwing, I forgot what term they used for that. After we're done picking, we went back to the first orchard to have dinner -- leftover from lunch and we tried to order something from the tasty smelling grill, we have to wait for more than half an hour because it was that good and the lines were long. We managed to find a good picnic table nearby and assemble everything again.

We left close to 5PM and stopped at another store to pick up some preservatives and the kids had ice-creams and all of a sudden a pea-hen, I believe it was, jumped out of nowhere onto the roof of one of the stores. It sure did get a lot of attention.