Three Girls And A Guy: September 2012

Monday, September 17, 2012

Applejack Festival 2012 - Arbor Day Farm

Our next stop was Arbor Day Farm. You had to pay to get into this!

We went into the nursery/greenhouse and they had these little white pine trees growing. They also had some guys demonstrating how to get a hazelnut ready to plant.

Girls in front of hundreds, maybe thousands white pines!

This is how they put single seeds into the slots so they can grow. It is like a needle with vacuum suction.

They had all sorts of cool houses/forts made out of trees/sticks.

We climbed up a tree house up to the top. We were way up high!

We found skunk hollow - pee yew!

We came upon a clearing where they were making HUGE bubbles!!! They were really neat. The lady said her bubble solution was made up of 7 ingredients and she was not telling what the ingredients were. Evie was fascinated - she loved it!

We went on a trail walk which had facts about trees and plants and animals - it was a long walk but very neat!

Gracie kept saying, "According to my map...." and would spurt off silly information - it was funny!

Fox hole with a little sneak in there.

There was a couple trees that had see through leaves - they were really neat!

One of the smelling stations. Hmmm...what could it be?

Its an American plum!

Evie got into the map reading too!

There was some strange looking wildlife there ;)

Too bad fairy glen only had one fairy living there.

Knock, knock. Are you home little fairy?

Taking a break at the end of the trail, everyone was tired and cranky and wouldn't give smiles, so we made silly faces instead.

Lots of people and lots of fun! There was too much to do in one day! Maybe next year we'll do it again.

Applejack Festival 2012 - Kimmel Orchard

I have always wanted to go to the Applejack Festival in Nebraska City. I was supposed to work, but numbers were low and I got put on call. So, unlike a good nurse, we packed up and headed down to our first stop - Kimmel Orchard.

I didn't realize it was part of UNL. I thought this was so fun! We bought our bags and went out into the orchard to pick!

We went down the first row - Jonagold. These were my favorite of what we tried.

There were so many apples on the ground under every tree! What a waste!!!

Hoff showed the girls that they could eat the apples. I took a few bites from theirs, but between the three of them, I think they ate another whole bag full.

Every apple Evie picked then, she thought she had to eat it - we had a few apples in the bag with a bite in them :)

It was nice and cool out and even a little misty - our pants got wet!

Aren't these apples just perfectly perfect! - This was the second variety we picked. We didn't see a sign, but I'm guessing red delicious. They were super sweet!

Got a family picture squeezed in!

Evie took this picture.

Then, we listened to a guy give a demonstration on bee keeping and the different stages of the hive. Pretty interesting!

The whole time picking apples, the girls could not shut up about riding the ponies we had seen before entering the orchard.

I've never seen two happier girls - they love to ride ponies. They also said this was their favorite part of the day.

Then, we went into the store and looked at all the canned goods that were for sale. The girls both got caramel apples! They had everything there from sauerkraut to black walnut syrup to corn cob jelly! It was a very enjoyable time and we will do it again.