MOONDANCE ORCHARD

Patti drove me and the kids out to MoonDance Orchard, which is what Sheila & Jerry have renamed what used to be Homestead Orchard out west of us.  In past years, by this time, we would have made a half dozen trips out there already, and have a ton of apple sauce put up.  This year has been, well, different.

We did very little hauling by hand this year.  Sheila kept up hauling buckets and bushel baskets full of apples for us with her tractor which is set up for hay rides, while Nell & Claire followed us with the wagon filled with buckets so nothing needed to be picked up and moved from one place to another.  It worked fairly well.

I wielded my cane with great effectiveness, using it upside-down to scoop windfalls out of the grass to make sure they were not rotted or covered with wasp & ants, while the kids scooped up the ones I indicated and filled the buckets, which would then be dumped into bushels, which we eventually had nearly 3 of.  130 pounds, give or take a bit.

The apples are simply not as prevalent this year.  A combination of a late hard frost in the spring, and hail in the early summer, caused extensive damage to the crop.  Finding the perfect apples for longer term unprocessed storage took some doing, but we did manage to get about 20 pounds of those.  For windfalls not too damaged for processing into sauce was not as hard, but still far more work than in previous years. (BTW, a cane is a great way to knock down those hard to reach apples if you forget to grab a picker mounted to a long pole)

Even through all of the frost and hail, there are still trees that Sheila says were “saved from the frost fairies” and are fairly loaded with apples, and they all taste wonderful.  Some varieties fared better than others.  My favorite, Fireside, seemed to have done better overall than some others.  The Haralson Apples had the best fruit set overall.  Others, like the large crabs (which are the best for apple pickles) were really total losses.  Not that the trees care.  Each year is different, but if it doesn’t kill the tree, there is always next year.

We had 3 hours of fun out there.  Unlike the other area orchards, which are forbidding people from picking their own apples (due to 90% of the crop being destroyed everywhere around here) Sheila and Jerry are still letting those who want to put in the time, to wander the orchard and pick whatever they want, which really is how I prefer to do it.

Or, perhaps, what I prefer is to watch my beautiful daughters climbing into tree tops after the elusive perfect orbs of happiness.

 

I do so love just being there.  It would be nice to have our own orchard someday, but for now, even when the two trees we planted this year start producing, it is not going to be nearly enough for our purposes.  For those of you, who like me, do not have 8500 of your own apple trees, and like to pick your own (though they do have a walk in cooler of already picked apples if that is how you prefer to gather them) Give Sheila a call at 952-451-2191, or stop in at the orchard.  Currently they are open Friday, Saturday & Sunday and they are located at 1080 County Road 92N, Independence MN 55359.  I do like that we do not have to drive far to get there as well.  Having a good orchard this close to the Twin Cities beats driving all the way up to Bayfield Wisconsin for good picking.

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One Response to MOONDANCE ORCHARD

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