Ah, the prime of fall – days warm and sunny, delicious fruit ripe and… delicious.
One of the simultaneous joys and pains-in-the-ass of moving to a new area is uncovering the “good” places: who is the best mechanic, where to get good chinese food, what’s the bad part of town and how do I get there without my wife knowing. And, in our case, where to pick your own apples.
Disclaimer: when it comes to apples and Christmas trees, we have specific wants: macouns (typically pronounced “ma-cow-ann”) and white pines. They’re both hard to find in the store so we frequent our local farms.
You don’t know how much local knowledge you have ingrained in your brain until you leave your home turf.
Our travels today took us to Drew Farm in Westford, MA. Not too far, though I kind of thought that a local farm would be even closer to our former-farm country town. Nice orchard with a good selection of types (including macoun), plus pumpkins. Free tractor rides to the orchard and baby alpacas rounded out the visit. The prices were better than the farms in Stow, though not as good as the supermarket (they never are). But we have a peck of delicious apples and a huge pumpkin.
