In one beautiful Saturday afternoon three expat wives got together to go fruit picking. Fruit picking was something new for me before. I really didn't remember this kind of activity either in Italy or in Slovakia. So when I first heard about it, it made me really curious.
What I find particularly amusing is a great ability of the Americans to turn a laborious activity into a social event from which both parties go out winners. In this case, farmers are happy about a new business without having to pick the fruit themselves, while people who come to farm are actually happy about picking the fruit themselves. It made me also think about how city life style has made rural activities or activities in the nature occasional and special.
Anyway, I am going to tell you about how three expat wives enjoyed this special afternoon. We all got together at the Linvilla Orchards - "all" includes our husbands and friends, too. The first stop was ice cream box! The ice cream is very delicious and not expensive at all. A real must-have!
Then we could set off for our picking tour. We had to register buying a five dollar token (a minimum to be spent at the farm) and we were given a paper box. Happy with our boxes, we jumped onto a cart full of hay (and full of people) and left the starting point. Driving around the farm, we enjoyed the view on the fields full of trees: apples, pears, little christmas trees, etc. The sun was shining bright and, fortunately, I remembered to put a sun screen before and I was wearing a hat to protect myself from the sun rays.
The first stop with a cart was a field of peach trees. We were explained where yellow peaches and white peaches were. Ready for picking now! There were a plenty of fruits for everyone and plenty of other people who had the same idea as ours of spending a Saturday afternoon.
We decided to go for veggies then. Zucchini, tomatoes, eggplants or peppers were all around waiting for us. You only had to be careful about the thorns of a zucchini plant! A knife might be very helpful but in the end I did well without it, too.
After we came back to the starting point, I grabbed some fresh cut flowers from the field while observing giant butterflies flying around. The very last stop for me was the market. You could find all the plants you could imagine there such as basil, parsley, sage and many others.
We came back home with a completely full car trunk and while driving, we were already thinking about the dishes we could have together. What about fresh pasta with zucchini and shrimps, followed by a fresh tomato salad? Sounds inspiring? Believe me, it also was delicious!
I hope we gave you some inspiration for a very pleasant summer afternoon. You can share with us your experience and suggest other places for fruit picking, too.
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Happy Sunday to all of you, ladies!