A Great Start to the Fall Season!

Hike Around Ross Lake

While it's chilly in the city year-round, it's warm and sunny when you cross the bridges.  So, we're making it a goal to spend our Saturdays exploring the Bay Area while obtaining some needed vitamin D. :)  The hike around Ross Lake is located near the town of San Anselmo in Marin County about 30 minutes north of San Francisco.  My co-worker told me about the hike, so we decided to check out it last Saturday before heading home to watch the Aggie game.

The boys....Toby always has to lead the way.

It's hard for me to believe a view like this is only 30 minutes outside the city.
While hiking, we felt like we were in Tahoe!

 

I had to zoom in on the above picture for you to appreciate Bella's "smile".
She's happiest when she's ouside walking in the sunshine.



Massive Redwood trees are scattered around the lake.
The enormity of these trees still gets to me every time I see them....breathtaking.



Apple and Pumpkin Pickin'

My favorite season to bake is the fall...not surprising given I'm such a fanatic about the holidays. I love all desserts that contain apples, pumpkin, ginger, chocolate, peppermint, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  The Bay Area is home to countless farms, so when I googled "apple orchards" and "pumpkin farms" I found several options just north of the city and to the west of Sonoma County.  We decided to visit Twin Hill Ranch which is located in a tiny town called Sebastopol known for its wine region that produces chards, syrahs, roses, and pinot noir.  After a stop at the apple orchard, we ate BBQ at a fantastic lil' place, and then went to a pumpkin farm.



Time to pick some apples!  I love that they gave us cute lil' red pails to collect our apples.

 

The orchard was pretty large.  Twin Hills Ranch primarily produces apples for juice, but they also run a small bakery focused on apple goods.



So many apples on the ground.



We learned that an apple is ready to be picked when it easily comes off the branch when you touch it.



So many apples to choose from!

The apples we picked!  Only cost us $7.00....$1/lb...pretty sweet deal!



We ate lunch at Smokehouse BBQ in Sebastopol.  Delicious!

 

We've arrived at the pumpkin farm called Peter Pumpkin Farm, which is also a dairy farm that produces cheese.

 

The farm had many expectant cows due within the month.  These large kennels are lined up waiting for newborn calves.

 

The farmer told us to visit his calf born 30 minutes before we arrived.  So, we walked up the farm road to where he housed his cows and this is what we found!!!

And here are the pumpkins!  This was our first visit to a real pumpkin patch...so fun.

I found the perfect one!



To pick a pumpkin from the vine, you just twist it.

 

Before we left the farm we stopped by to take a peek at the calf again.
She had moved much closer to the fence and was curious about us.

Mama standing guard.



The lil' thing tried walking through the fence...she was precious!



Here is the apple pie I made with the apples we picked from the farm.
It's a recipe from a Junior League cookbook and it was delicious!



Here's a close-up view of the leaves I cut from leftover dough for the crust.
I was pretty impressed with my first-ever apple pie to make!