Foto Frenzy: Catoctin Mountain Orchard

The Sous Chef claims that he's terrible at planning events/outings/dates/day trips, but I beg to differ.  Remember my 30th birthday celebration?  That was all him.  He was the one that called the venues, arranged the drivers, put down the deposits, and contacted the guests.  He even programmed the vineyards/restaurants/cab companies numbers into his phone so he had them ready at a moment's notice.

And he says he can't plan.

Pshaw.

This is why I wasn't worried in the least when he announced that we were taking a day trip to Catoctin Mountain Park for some hiking, followed by a visit to the interestingly-named "ColorFest".  I didn't know exactly what "ColorFest" meant, but when he said there would be apples and pumpkins involved, I stopped asking questions, grabbed the camera and practically bee-lined it to the car.

One very long car trip later (thank you, multi-vehicle accident along I-70), we pulled into the lovely Catoctin Mountain Park.  I have very fond memories of going there as a child, especially to Cunningham Falls - even my couch-potato younger self couldn't resist the beauty of the huge boulders, breathtaking waterfalls, and fresh mountain air:

Photo courtesy of Brunswicenes

Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.

It seems a certain Commander-in-Chief just had to visit Camp David that very day.  Camp David happens to be located right smack dab in the middle of Catoctin Park.  By the time we got there, the majority of the parking lots were closed, and the ones that were open were swarmed (I tend to avoid crowds like the plague, which ironically enough I believe has helped me avoid contracting the plague)

On to the Festival.

We're not sure we found the exact festival, since the directions weren't very clear, but luckily we were in the mood for an adventure, so we just stopped where it looked pumpkin-y and apple-y.  Plus, it's hard not to stop and look around when you see this:

I know there must be some clever, punny geometry-related joke here involving Pi vs. pie, but I can't figure it out...

We had stumbled upon Catoctin Mountain Orchard, complete with pumpkin pyramid.  A friendly scarecrow welcomed us to the grounds:

I fell out of the car (don't judge; I'd been sitting for about two hours at that point) and immediately ran like some sort of crazed, giant toddler towards a patch of wildflowers and milkweed.  Why, you ask?:

I've got a thing for butterflies.

After I'd had my fill (oh, who am I kidding, I could have watched those beautiful bugs all day long!), we ventured through the apple orchard for a while, snapping pictures (and escaping the screams of the overly-sugared, Halloween-hyperized children running around the playground):

Don't get me wrong, I love children - I hope to live like one myself someday.  In the meantime, the Sous Chef and I are pretty good at goofing around all on our own:

While we walked through the orchard, we noticed that some of the baby trees (Sous Chef, in his knowledgeable horticulturist voice, tells me they are called "whips") had weights on the branches:

We immediately began brainstorming as to why they would put concrete weights on teeny apple branches.  Leave it to me to challenge the professional Green Thing Grower's ideas and come up with my own.  He said that they were to encourage the main stem, or "leader" to grow and become the trunk.  I said that it was so that there would be room for more apples to grow.  I did some research.  He was right ...(but I'll still tell him we both were).  According to my research, weighing the branches down at a 60-degree angle allows for maximum light penetration to the tree canopy and fruit production.  Pretty snazzy, huh?  (By the way, if you happen to be a devout Bare Midriff reader and professional apple grower, please further our education on this matter by leaving a comment below).

After a leisurely tractor ride around the property, it was time to do some shopping at the orchard market. It was one of those classic deals - workers in overalls, fruit flies, country kitsch, hustling, bustling, baskets and bushels of apples, peaches, and grapes, honey, preserves, cider...

Oh my, the cider.  My friends, I got my first taste of Honeycrisp Cider.  H-O-N-E-Y-C-R-I-S-P.

Holy apple-pickin' cow, Batman - it was good.  Like an apple and a pear got busy in the cider mill and squeezed out a sweet, juicy, earthy, crispy baby.

The President may have disrupted my hiking plans, but at least I had Honeycrisp cider.

And thus ends this tale.  Until next time...




P.S.  My lovely kitty-kids, who happen to be polydactyl sisters, love attacking/ripping to shreds any sort of fruit or vegetable that is, for lack of a better word, phallically-inclined.  Zucchini, cucumbers, bananas - all of them have been clawed to death my by beloved felines.  With this knowledge, how much fun do you think they would have with this sucker?:

Eat well.