Weekly Happenings: Orchard Field Trip

The big highlight of this week was our field trip to an apple orchard in the mountains on a gorgeous autumn day. We tagged along with our friends, who attend an online school that often organizes such outings. We enjoyed a wagon ride through part of the orchards; a tour through a museum of 19th century life; cider samples; a chance to milk Buttercup, a sweet (and long-suffering, if you ask me) Jersey cow; a petting zoo; fun on the playground; and the orchard store.

We bought a 1/2 bushel of a variety of apples: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Winesap, Rome Beauty, Arkansas Black, Mutsu, Pink Lady, and Cameo. We also bought apple cider doughnuts; a gallon of apple cider; a jar each of cherry jelly and cinnamon pear preserves; two hand-held apple pies; a small bag of dried apples; and a bag of pork skins. And while there, Miss Priss and I each enjoyed a cider slushie, while Tiny Girl dived into a caramel-apple-in-a-bowl: a sliced apple covered in caramel sauce. I helped her finish it up. Motherhood has its perks, after all!

One of the online school's teachers had set up a center for apple science. The children each selected an apple. They weighed it with a spring scale, found its volume, tested its buoyancy (thank you, Archimedes!), and measured its mass.





At home we did a bit of apple math. A 1/2-bushel bag of apples cost $17.00. The girls and I weighed the bag when we got home; it was 21 pounds. We did the math and found that these lovely, fresh, tree-ripened apples cost $1.24 per pound.

That's a fabulous price, but now I have 21 pounds of apples. What to do?

Well, Himself has requested a pie. I've never made my own pie crust, but given my new make-things-homemade bent,  I will now have to give it a go. Wish me luck.

I'm also planning slow cooker applesauce. I'm hosting bookclub this coming week, so a nice caramel apple crisp sounds just the thing for dessert. A drizzling of heavy cream wouldn't go amiss. Does it ever?

I could freeze some sliced, for future use. If the pie isn't a disaster, Himself might request another some day.

Then I guess we could just eat a few. You know, plain. There's an idea.

All our other subjects are clicking along. A brief glimpse:

• fractions for everyone in math
• noun study in grammar, focusing on finer details, such as mass and count nouns, compound nouns, etc.
• Psalm 46 in our pre-inductive study of the Psalms
• World War II in history
• poetry memorization for recitation
• a look at the planets in our solar system
• exploring Israel in geography
• our readings, two of which, Queen Victoria and Ordinary Genius, required notebook page installments 

I want to spend more time on World War II, so we are spending next week reading more about it via historical fiction and recollections. Next week is also our notebooking week, so I'll be designing more pages between now and then. Check back to see what I come up with!

I'm linking up with:
No Ordinary Blog Hop
HammockTracks
The Homeschool Mother's Journal
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Collage Friday @ Homegrown Learners