North Star Orchards!

Is a beautiful place--the way I remember apple orchards being from when I was a kid, when I used to pick at Dearshorn Farms in Maynard, MA. Wild, sprawling orchards. No frills. True nature. Not everything perfectly manicured and "neat. I see a lot of my childhood apple farm in North Star--and it is only down the road in Madison! Our friends Dave and Muriel invited us to go along--we were really excited, as they made it clear how this was a VERY special place to them. We are honored that they shared it with us....


Dave and Callum "braved the cold" (it was only in the 50s, and it shows in Callum!) on the tractor ride out to the orchard....Callum LOVES his vest, and wants to wear it all the time nowWe picked some Cortlands and McIntosh apples. I have to say that I have rarely seen apples this big; these were beautiful, rosy apples that looked like they had been doing a lot of bench presses and dead lifts. I love this picture below, and I think Amanda is a really great photographer; she is good at capturing "moments." One of us must have been telling some type of funny joke or story....perhaps I was telling Dave I consider myself to be a serious cyclist...now THAT would have been a laugh!
Callum continues to have a love/hate relationship with heavy machinery. He LOVES tractors, diggers, big trucks, lawn mowers, and weed wackers--yet he virtually breaks out in hives when any of these things come near him. As we decided to walk back to the farm store, instead of taking the tractor, we got "passed" by tractors a few times. When they were near, Callum virtually jumped into the arms of Muriel....
Another great picture--Muriel and Callum posing on the 1944 tractor that sits on the land of the orchard. I forget the name of the make, but it is a big, beautiful, orange tractor. Callum was pretty scared to go near it at first, but that soon changed when he saw that he could work the steering wheel......
....and that Dave could give him a "ride" on the springy seat!

Dave and Callum are truly "bike buddies." It is a cool little friendship to observe; each time we go into Mathieu's, Dave gets Callum's "store bike" (a green Raleigh) ready so Callum can tour the inventory of the bike shop...haha. And Dave is the one who both found and "fixed up" the used Trek Callum now rides. Good stuff.....
A great, cool, cloudy fall day. And the Patriots won too!

PS: (I want to remember this in years to come) Out of all the things a two year old would want to get/carry around at a farm store, Callum Stuart had his heart SET on a bag of dried, mixed beans (split pea, yellow eye, soldier, black, etc). He wanted them in the WORST way....he NEEDED to carry this bag of beans around. Hilarious.