Apple Picking

Most people know that Angie is a l0t better at writing then I am, but she wants me to write some blogs as well. So here goes nothing.

Fall is a great time of year, the trees turn wonderful colours (yes that is spelled correctly :) ), the air becomes crisp and the smell of snow starts to waft through the air. Can you tell I enjoy snow and the cold?

But it is not winter so I will not go down that road. I also enjoy picking/harvesting my own food (one of the reasons I can't wait to own a house - so we can have a great garden), so fall is a great time of year. Especially for apple picking. This fall Angie and I have gone apple picking three times. It has been so much fun doing little activities like that with her (Ah the benifits of married life). The first time we went apple picking was to an older orchard, we got some great apples there called Honey Crisp (they are a new variety of apple developed by the the University of Minnesota). The second time was with at an outing with my work, where we got a few apples but not many. And the last time was with some friends of our, the Johnson family. It was interesting to see the differences between these three orchards. The first one was let go - most of the trees had not been trimmed for a few years. The second and third were well kept, but out of these two the first was more of a production farm while the second was a LARGE pick your own farm, there were a few hundred people there, but the apples were at least the size of a softball.

It was so much fun going apple picking with my beautiful wife, we will have to go more next year.

happy (canadian) thanksgiving!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in Canada, so to make Bernard feel at home, I made a feast. We planned on having friends over, but no one else had reserved the date (isn't it a common holiday in Minnesota?) :0) So, we stuffed ourselves on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, broccoli, cranberries, gravy, pumpkin pie...oh so much food! Our fridge is stuffed with leftovers and we've gained five pounds, but it was a lot of fun! So, to all those that missed out on the feast because of other commitments, eat your hearts out...

Small towns

This past weekend Angie and I went to a picnic sponsored by my work. We went to an apple orchard where there was a corn maze and some other activities. It was great to get out of the house for a while and see a new area of Minnesota. After the picnic we went to a small town named Hastings(an interesting fact about the town was that it used to have a spiral bridge right down town). It was almost more fun to go shopping there than the picnic. The town was a cute old city with a nice downtown street - there were lots of little shops that we unfortunately were not able to go into as we arrived in town at four pm and everything closed at five pm. I am sure there are more nice small towns around Minnesota that we will have to visit over the next year.