Harvest Tales

Sometimes Mommy's ideas don't work out quite as planned. This was one of those times. My intentions were good. My execution was poor.

I desperately wanted to take Max and his cousins to Sky Top, an apple orchard in the mountains, to pick apples, enjoy the leaves, and revel in Fall-ness. Our plans were rained out too many times to count. Finally, a Sunday dawned with bright sunshine instead of clouds. After Max's nap, I dressed him up in his cute "Harvest" outfit and we headed for the mountains. Did I notice the chill in the air? Of course! I threw a light jacket in the car and even his hat from last year, just in case. We planned to meet Max's cousins, Aunt Deanna, and Grammy at the orchard and some of our friends were also taking their 1 1/2 year old daughter the same day. About halfway to Hendersonville, we get a text from our friends, "Turn back." No way, we were already almost there! "It's freezing and packed. We are leaving after 10 minutes". What an exaggeration...Greenville was perfectly pleasant.

As we wound our way up the mountain, I did notice that the temperature gauge was dropping at an alarming rate. As we sat in a long line of cars waiting to turn onto the road for the orchard, I did notice that it seemed excessively crowded. As the wind shook our car and bent the trees almost to the ground, I did notice that it seemed a bit gusty. But we were almost there! Bravely, we forged on.

It was approximately 10 minutes after we left the warmth of the car, hiked to the entrance, noted the insane number of people who had the exact same idea about visiting the orchard on a sunny weekend day, and realized most of the apples had already been picked that we decided we had made a mistake. Additionally, Max's adorable outfit was not keeping him warm, the lines to pay for apples and cider stretched to the entrance, and my dreams of Harvest pictures of the boys in front of the "How Tall this Fall" sign were not going to materialize.

We gave up and left after purchasing a bag of apples that we did not pick. I was desolate. On our way home, we stopped by the local pumpkin patch to grab some pumpkins. 15 degrees warmer, 1/10 as crowded, and a 100 times more fun! Maybe next year we'll stick with the pumpkin sale that is minutes away from our house....