One of our annual traditions is apple picking. We usually pick 200-300 pounds of Fuji apples. We can apple sauce, apple juice, apple syrup, and sliced apples. We store the rest in our root cellar for eating throughout the winter. They stay fresh and usually last until early March.

But this year has been a DISASTER. Not only did we have a drought all summer, we had a hard freeze in the spring. It killed most of the apple blossoms. So there were NO u-pick fuji apples this year. Oh the horror!

We did go and pick about 100 pounds of golden delicious apples. But it just wasn’t the same. We still canned a bunch. But golden delicious apples just do not store well in the root cellar. So we don’t have any fresh apples! Brett was crying about it one day, and I told her not to worry, we could buy some fujis from the grocery store.

“It’s not the same,” she cried. “They taste horrible!” She’s right, they definitely do not taste anywhere near as good as those we’ve picked ourselves.

In this photo, Indi is enjoying her apple, while Daddy is performing quality control on the apples the children have picked. Jim never actually picks any apples when we go apple picking. He plops himself on the ground and inspects what everyone else has picked. It’s a challenge for him to keep up!