Saturday Un-planned

We planned to go to the Lego Brick Master Fair on Saturday. It started at 11am. We got there at noon to a line that was at least a 1/4 mile long in the hot sun and not moving. We decided that we would rather wait in the morning on Sunday when we would be first in the exhibit hall. We did go on Sunday arriving at 9:30am and waiting in line until 11am when the doors opened. We were NOT the first in line!

So what do you do when your plan was to spend the afternoon looking at amazing lego structures in the air conditioning? Drive 35 miles south west to a farm to pick raspberries, peaches and corn, in the hot sun.

We stopped at the Rail Stop Inn in The Plains, VA on the way for lunch. Nice little place in a nice little town although Wylie was quite confused by the fact there were no plains around the town, so we showed him a field calling it a plain.

We ended at Hartland Orchards in Markham, VA which we hoped still had blueberries or peaches. We ended up picking two quarts of raspberries. Wylie in true fashion whooped and raced through the berry patch following a creature--this time Bumble (a fat bumble bee)--to the "good" berries which I was then ordered to pick. We spent a significant amount of time finding our two quarts. We ended up having some for dessert when we got home and then freezing the remainder to make ice cream.

Further down the road Hartland offered up a unique opportunity that none of us had done before, corn picking! There was a nice patch and we were led into a nice spot to pick our own dozen. Wylie asked a few important questions such as  "How do you know which ones are ripe?" and "Why are some purple?" to which the farmer answered... "Don't pick any that are taller than you (meaning Wylie)" and "They are purple because they aren't ripe/are young." I learned something new. We were shown how to pull the cob straight down from the stalk and then give it a slight twist to pick it. Wylie had a blast finding the right stalk and the right cob. I too would go back to pick this corn as it was incredibly good both grilled that night and boiled the next day. Wylie greedily ate the corn both days!

Picking the corn 

Carrying the cob to the bucket. A regular kid!

Grilled Corn! YUM

We ended our adventure at Stribling Orchards trying to pick peaches. It was a failure. The trees were mostly empty or had rather unripe fruit. I found out after climbing two trees that technically we were not allowed to climb the trees to get to the ripe good fruit at the top of the trees. We had some of the slim pickings for dessert that night as well. We WILL be going back to this orchard for apples in the autumn.