Picking Apples at Raven Hill


It’s that time of the year again. The air is cool, the wind a little crisp. This morning at six, it was still dark out.

This time of the year is always tinged with a bit of sadness. No more summer. No more heat. No more picnics at Two Lights. Bummer.

But as we get closer to Halloween and the first days of wearing sweaters, I start to perk up a bit. It’s apple season! Time to pile in the car and take Dash out for his first orchard excursion. That in itself would have been an easy task, though we wanted to find an organic orchard that was within an hour of Portland. I was surprised at how difficult that turned out to be. There are only two.

Two.

Out of about twenty-one.

That means nineteen orchards within an hour of us are spraying their apples with pesticides. That sucks. But that is not the point of this so I’ll let it go. For now.

We (Neil, Dash, me, and my parents, aka Meme and Bum) drove over to Raven Hill Orchard in East Waterboro on Sunday. (They don’t have a website yet, so no link! But see here for further information about how to find them.)

Heavy with fruit

They’re in their first year of production and it’s a beautiful little spot. Go go go if you’re thinking about going. And if you’re not thinking about going, what’s your problem?
Go! You don’t even have to pick apples. You could just hang out in their coffee shop and laugh at your lame apple picking friends. You know, there’s something for everyone.

Anyway, as it turned out, Dash didn’t really want to pick apples. Go figure. What he elected to do was sleep. Through the entire two hours we were there. But the rest of us had a great time picking a few common varieties and lots of tasty heirloom apples.

Hudson’s Golden Gem
Hudson’s Golden Gem, anyone?

pick me

Holiday gift spoiler alert!!

Apples in a Basket

This is going to make some mighty fine apple butter for someone’s Christmas toast.


2 Responses to “Picking Apples at Raven Hill”

  1. Becca Says:

    You Pacific Northwest folks are always showing off pictures of your beautiful apple orchards aren’t you?? Looks like you guys had a great time. It’s cooling off a bit here as well. We don’t start sweating until around 10:30. Fall is here! Yippee!

  2. HappyDash Says:

    I’m in the other Portland, but it’s the same thing really. If you’ve got orchards, you show ’em off!
    Happy Fall, Becca.