Apple picking and pumpkin pie!

So today was a much better day, weather wise and fun wise!

It was supposed to be just as cold today, but not as wet. A friend, her baby, Nat, and I all went to the farm we had planned on going to yesterday. It was pretty cold (about 50˚), but the baby was all wrapped up in a wrap on Mom (or me after the wrap was hurting her C-section incision after a while) and we were wearing jackets so it wasn't too bad.

On the way, we stopped to get gas in her car on post. Their gas station only allows people to go to the pumps one way, and they are always full of cars. This is what we had to do:

Yes. That is the hose stretched across the car. Don't worry, Nat was watching it to make sure everything went okay.

Anyway, the farm was about a hour away from where we live, and in a completely different atmosphere. When you get off the highway, you go to small country roads with open fields and good crops. It was much more like the open spaces you find in Texas. And the houses were HUGE!

The farm had pick your own stuff, as well as stuff that had already been harvested. We chose to pick our own apples from their orchard. It was so much fun! They had 8 or 9 different kinds of apples, I think we got almost of them. Here I am picking a Suncrisp apple.

I believe I'm going to make applesauce with several of the apples. Nat wants an apple pie though. We may have enough. Here are a few more pictures of us at the orchards.

I didn't realize that apple trees were so small. They make good apples though!

Here's a tall one.

That's my friend on the right (because that's obviously not my hubby). They were looking for larger apples. The Braeburn apples were all fairly small.

We also got a pumpkin. There were several different kinds, but the pumpkin pie bin caught my eye. I didn't know it, but they have pumpkins specially bred to be good in pies. I figured now would be a good time to make a pumpkin pie from scratch, I've never done one before.

I sent Nat to the store for evaporated milk, but we had everything else. So I started.

Cooking the pumpkin was by far the hardest part. I cut it up and pulled out the seeds (planning on toasting them later).

Then you boil them in about an inch of water for half a hour. This is the beginning, they were more yellow at the end. But I forgot to get a picture of that. Then you skin them and put all the 'meat' into the mixing bowl.

While the pumpkin was cooking, I made the two pie crusts by hand with my mother-in-law's recipe. It's one of the best I've had.

Ready to go in the oven!

The finished product! 

About to try the first bite!

It turned out pretty well overall! We didn't have any whipped cream (we forgot it at the store), but it was still very good.

It cooked really fast, 10 minutes less than was said in the recipe. Or our oven is off, which I've been thinking for a while. Real pumpkin does taste different than the canned stuff, it's actually weaker in taste. It may work to try it with another pumpkin and boil it down to concentrate the taste. Maybe something to think about. I'm pretty sure I won't be cooking real pumpkin pies again for a while, it's too much work!

Much better day than yesterday.

My mood matches the weather.

Ever have one of those days where nothing goes right? That was today.

I volunteer in the church nursery on Sunday mornings now, with the 12-18 month olds. One of the little boys fell and busted his lip. While I was cleaning him up, the other little boy in class that day had a meltdown because I was holding boy #1 instead of him. He didn't stop until I put down boy #1 and picked him up to rock him in the rocking chair. (And I've been working in the nursery for almost 2 months now and I still don't have a name tag, but that's not that big of a deal.)

We had planned to go apple picking with our small group from church after our 3rd service got out, which was going to be really exciting. And now it's cold and raining, so no one showed up. I had only heard back from 2 people anyway, so the whole thing probably would have been a bust anyway, regardless of the rain. I was really looking forward to going because I've wanted to do that ever since we learned that we were moving here. I missed it last season, and it's a rather short season so we only have a few weeks left to go.

When we left the church after waiting for people, I remembered we were going to pass CVS where my prescription was waiting to be picked up. So we stopped by to grab it. After waiting for the 5 people in line in front of me, I got up to the counter and told the lady my name. She hunted. And hunted. And checked the computer. And hunted again. Apparently, when I called in for a refill, it didn't take. So we waited some more, and when I finally got back up to the counter (I had to get in line again) they had gotten my order ready.

It's depressing days like this that just make me want to crawl back in bed and start the day over. Too bad it's closer to bed time than it is to morning. : (