Autumn in New England is incomplete without a day of picking apples and lugging around pumpkins. As the air turned crisper and the leaves changed color, my husband and I set off for a day in the Lyman Orchards at Middlefield in Connecticut. Rolling meadows, miles of orchards, a corn maze and stretches of pumpkin patches greeted us the moment we stepped out of the car.
I believe in the age-old adage of "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" so there was no stopping me from feasting on the wide variety of deliciously crunchy apples. I was glad that I had skipped breakfast in my hurry to get there. The orchard had the usual Red Delicious, the green Granny Smith, the McIntosh and many more. The grass was strewn with windfall and the boughs were so heavily laden with juicy apples that they almost touched the ground. But remember to carry cash, because when you go to weigh and pay for all the apples you pick, your credit or debit cards won't be accepted. Come on, it is the countryside. Further details can be found at http://www.lymanorchards.com/
After walking and picking and eating as much as we could, we walked over towards a pond surrounded by tall reeds. Nearby, stacks of hay were rolled up neatly. A bright red wagon pulled by horses crossed our path as we walked over to a field of pumpkins gleaming in the sun. The pumpkins were big, orange and quite impossible to lift!
Our next stop was a corn maze by a body of water, partially guarded by an old-fashioned wooden fence. It had ducks swimming in it and was close to the Lyman family owned café-cum-store. The store was an apple-lover's delight. Starting from freshly baked apple-pies and signature apple sauces, it offered a variety of rare combinations like the "honey, jalapeno, and horseradish mustard"! Even the chicken sandwich I ordered had slices of apple in it. Yes, that's taking things a bit too far but who am I to complain? I love apples in just about anything.
If you are there on a weekend like I was and want to avoid the crowd in the café-cum-store, you could go for freshly popped corn or steaming hot dogs from nearby stands. Also, you could try your hand at picking pears, raspberries, strawberries, peaches, blueberries, and jostaberries depending on which season you go there. We had chosen the apples and pumpkins season to enjoy the orchard's wide array of colors. The red, the green and the golden of the apples complement the orange of the pumpkins. The bursts of deep red and yellow in the trees offset the surrounding green. The unparalleled beauty of the New England countryside is at its best, waiting to be explored.
Article and photos by Esha Samajpati
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