I invited my folks to come along with us and we made a terrific day of visiting several orchards that featured fresh pressed apple cider, pumpkin patches, a corn maze, antique stores, a huckleberry festival, and a fabulous BBQ lunch. It was truly worth all the time we spent there, which was all day. The weather was warm, in the 70's, and the sun was bright, you can't ask for a better day to spend visiting the farms and orchards of the Hood River valley.
For those who may not know, Hood River is located in the Columbia River Gorge, which seperates Oregon and Washington. We were on the Oregon side, up in the hills. The area is world renowned for the fabulous growing weather for fruits such as apples and pears.
To end our day, we visited an organic farm that was tucked way back into the hills. It was a beautiful farm with a big old farmhouse, with a couple of little cottages scattered about. As we drove on down the road following the signs to the "apple house" it was very nicely decorated with fall items and pumpkins. The owner of the farm was in the middle of redecorating/designing a new facade to the "apple house" where they sell their produce and make apple cider, this man also had a HUGE wood working shop that any man would drool profusely over, including my husband. You could tell that this man was extremely talented. We scraped together $1.50 worth of change so we could buy some of their Mountain Rose variety of apple that is pink in the middle and very sweet but small. They are very yummy.
The man who owned the farm came over to us to invite us to check out the pond on his property. He told us it was stocked with lots of fish and that we were welcome to feed them. He went and fetched a big bucket half filled with pellets of food to feed the fish with, and pointed out the way up the hill in which were supposed to find the pond.
After trekking probably a couple of blocks uphill and into the woods we finally discovered his little gem(pond). The pond is overlooked by 2 mountains, Mt Adams on the northside and Mt Hood to the south. The trees around the pond were all spattered with beautiful fall colors. Now he wasn't kidding when he said he had fish in the pond. Oh my goodness, there were TONS of fish in the pond. We would throw out a small handful of fish food and they went crazy jumping out of the water and swarming around under the water until every last bit of food was eaten. We spent an hour up there just throwing handfuls of food to the fish and enjoying the sun warming us as watched how close the fish would swim to our wonderful 2 yr old son. He had a blast! He would throw a couple pieces of food at a time and then clap with exictement over how quickly the fish would eat his offering to them. It was a bit muddy along the waters edge so of course there were incidents of him getting to excited and slipping. So we came away from the pond with a very muddy little boy, but that is par for the course when you have a 2 yr old boy. Good thing mommy was thinking that morning and brought extra clothes. Overall it was the best day of my whole month. This month has been filled with much disappointment and irritations and this was a breath of fresh air that I for one so badly needed. It was good for our family to get some time away from it all and enjoy God's beauty.
More later on what else is happening in our family... God's blessing to you this fall.
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