Apple Picking, September 22

It was a beautiful fall day...Cathy, Zion, Almaz and I trekked an hour west of the 'burbs looking for an orchard that hadn't been yet claimed by seas of town home communities. We hit the jackpot, finding 2 orchards within 5 miles of each other. We visited them both--Prairie Sky had an amazing country store, where Cathy stocked up on pies, apple butter, cider, cookies, donuts, and caramel apples--we filled up an entire red wagon full of autumn produce! However, we weren't done until we visited the farm down the road, with its offering of u-pick HONEY CRISP apples--nectar from the gods! We tortured Zion by taking our time filling our bag with the ripest, biggest, juiciest ones (while swarms of yellow jackets worked busily around us--Zion's phobia from his beehive experience earlier this summer). Finally, we visited the petting zoo, deserted at the end of the day. I decided I would have a little fun chasing and catching the chickens. I was derided at first, but even Zion and Cathy finally got into the game while Almaz documented the whole thing in pictures and on film. Zion experienced some chicken Karma when a frantic hen turned suddenly and ran straight for him, causing him to scream bloody murder and jump 3 feet into the air. You've never seen a chicken-chasing pregnant woman laugh so hard--I was on the ground, gasping for air...Anyway, as you can see from the evidence, Cathy turned into quite a proficient chicken wrangler herself by the end of the trip :-)