Who knew?? ... that a farm could be such fun?

I'm from Iowa but I'm not a farm girl ... I'm a city girl and this becomes very clear to people when I am on a farm and I point and comment about one of the cows, only to be corrected and told that that is not a cow, it's a bull. But after living in MN for over 5 years now, I think I can finally say I am a Minnesotan. And in the Fall, Minnesotans visit the apple orchards on beautiful, crisp, sunny, fall days.

On Sunday, on the spur of the moment, we took the kids to one of the local orchards (Fall Harvest Orchard in Delano, MN) for some outdoor fun and some apple-picking. Events like this are extra-fun this year because our two adopted sons from Ethiopia have never experienced an apple orchard ... or an authentic, working farm for that matter. Fall Harvest Orchard not only has an apple orchard - but they have fields of pumpkins, gourds, squash, popcorn, flax, soybeans and broom weed. They also have cows (pumpkin-eating cows!), chickens, ducks, goats, and pigs - and of course, baby pigs, and baby goats, and chicks - oh and tractor rides too.

The kids spent most of an afternoon holding the baby animals (chicks and goats) and feeding apples to the cows. They hauled buckets of apples that they picked up from the ground in the orchard to the cow pen, where they held the apples out so the cows could snake them from their hands with their long tongues.

What a beautiful and memorable day for everyone - and I have the pictures to memorialize another "first experience" for the boys!