Tougas Farm

It's 2:30 am on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning, so what better time to blog, right? I know the handful of you who read this space appreciate the updates (you know who you are) so I'll cap my work-filled evening (which I will NOT blog about) with a few vignettes from the weekend.

On Saturday we headed out to Tougas Farm (in Northboro) for an afternoon of apple picking. A trip to Tougas with a bunch of Ultimate friends has been a fairly routine tradition for the past few years (not sure that makes sense...can you have a tradition that skips a year here and there?), and this year we managed to make it out before all the good Macouns, Galas, and Honey Crisps--the Lady Gaga of the orchard (people talk abotu them incessantly, and their descriptions are often punctuated by gasps of awe..."Oh but have you seen the Honey Crisps this year? They are *gasp* spectacular)--had been picked.

We arrived at Tougas after a somewhat exhausting stop in downtown Northboro where we celebrated "Applefest." Applefest began with a cutesy community parade of fire trucks, bands, and a lot of teenagers in black velour dance suits marching down Route 20. It was nothing spectacular, but the turnout was--the sidewalk was packed for blocks on end. Apparently Applefest is a big deal in Northboro. After the parade we all retired to a very crowded fair area where small retailers were selling their wares and food vendors were running out of hot dogs and pizza to sell to the kids. Since I'm not a huge fan of crowds (shocker, I know!), this was not the most pleasant experience, and I could not wait until we got somewhere less focused on celebrating apples and more geared towards growing them.

(Related: Natalia pointed out, quite correctly, that we strangely saw very few apple-themed items at Applefest. I saw a few Mylar balloons shaped like apples, but none of the food had apples...no apple ice cream, apple pizza, or apple dogs. Don't ask--it's almost 3 am now and I'm lucky I can even string two sentences together.)

So that's the backdrop on our arrival at Tougas--it's late in the day, we're coming from a crowded parade, and certain people (ok--me and my son) may have benefited from some naptime before heading to the orchards. But we persevered.

Luckily for everyone, Tougas had a little petting zoo with a bunch of animals you would expect to find in an apple orchard--goats. Nope, doesn't make sense to me either. The kids love them, though, and for the bargain price of $0.25 you can grab a handful of goat food and feed them. And have the goats lick your child's hands, which is hardly something you can put a price on.



Out of the petting zoo and into the orchard, finally. I carried Celia in the Bjorn, and we wisely decided to purchase the smallest apple bag possible--the thought of carrying a heavy sack of apples and two kids at the end of a long day was too much for me to bear. A quick hayride led us into prime picking territory and we were off--led by Andres, who was very eager to show off his apple picking technique.

On the hayride heading into the orchard.

We all picked a few as we meandered through the rows of different varieties. Andres even got a few big ones that he was very proud of. Soon he left the picking to his parents while he played with his good friend (and sometime co-conspirator) Taibaby.

Here they play "red light; green light":



And here they play a game called "The Hot" (that is the game's actual name; I'm not making it up) that was popularized this summer during frisbee games. The game goes like this: Andres (and friends, when available) finds a patch of dirt and shuffles his feet through it, kicking dust into the air. He then says "Look at the hot, daddy!" and finally tries to outdo his previous effort. This game kept him occupied for hours during ultimate. Each week I thought to myself "he's sure to get tired of it this week"...and each week I was wrong. Anyway, "The Hot" (featuring Taibaby):



Soon after we decided that it was time to go. Celia needed to eat and have her diaper changed, and the forecast called for a toddler tantrum at some point, so we wanted to head back to the car to avert that as much as possible. We still had time for a couple pictures, though, on one of the gigantic trucks.

Taibaby hanging out on the truck.

Andres...not so much.

We left Tougas, headed to a barbecue at frisbee friend Jeff's house (following another short nap for Andres), and concluded our apple-themed day by eating hot dogs and playing soccer until the sun went down. Good times for everyone, and no meltdowns (I think I came closest to throwing a tantrum, actually; I had a splitting headache from 3pm on and relief was nowhere to be found).

Now we have a bunch of apples just waiting to be baked...recipes welcome!