Apples, Cider and Bees-Kelly's Apple Farm

Fall is my favorite time of year. Along with the beautiful fall scenery, there are wonderful farm markets and cider mills to visit. My husband and I have deemed some of them Pumpkin Disney Land. Those ones include all manner of activities from pony rides to face painting to banjo music to bounce houses. They have their place and can be fun, but I prefer places that specialize in something and do it well. Today it was apples!

Kelly's Apple farm is the real deal. (They are so the real deal they don't even have a website I can send you to!) I've been going since I was a little girl and it's one of my favorite fall places. You can watch cider being made and then taste it. There is nothing like fresh unpasteurized cider. The stuff at Wegman's so does not compare! My favorite part is when the apples are crushed and all of the mushy apples get sprayed into the juicer part of the machine! (I swear every year I get excited to see that) After the juice is all squeezed out, the cardboardy apple pulp is put into the fields for fertilizer! No waste! We watched for a long time and then tasted and bought some cider ($3 1/2 gal-A bargain for something handmade right in front of you I think!)

You can buy apples grown by the Kelly family (We did-1 bushel for $6) and they make an apple pie that is famous around here (as well as some wonderful breads and other baked goods with apples of course)

There is a fireplace surrounded by large chairs and couches where you can enjoy your cider and sweet treats as well as a neat bee hive that you can look at and purchase honey from. They also had a nice display about the importance of the Honey Bee which I though was really cool given the current plight of the Honey Bee.

We have taken our girl on this trip before but she was really too little to get as much out if it as she did today. I think it was way better than a bounce house!