A Day in the Country

The weather was unusually nice over the weekend. Eighty degrees for a day in August in Washington is almost unheard of, so we took advantage of the sunny skies to head to the mountains to pick peaches. The original vision for the trip was taking a picnic lunch, which we would enjoy under the lovely peach groves as we gazed over the mountains while Anna ran through the wild flowers. The reality was much different.

First, Joe was the victim of the flu over the weekend and was just starting to feel somewhat human again on Sunday. Theresa had found a day trip listed in the newspaper earlier in the summer of a nice fruit farm outside of Berryville, VA (appropriately named). As we loaded up our picnic lunch and took off, Anna began singing the ABC song in the car until she fell asleep. As we drove west, the sun was interrupted by clouds. By the time we drove over the mountain, it was raining. Determined to press on and pick our fruit, we finally located Maintosh Fruit & Berry Farm.

The farm ended up being much more than we expected. In addition to peaches, they had blackberries, tomatoes and about any other type of summer vegetable you could possibly want. We did not even need to pack lunch because they served food made from their fruits and vegetables (Sunday's menu included eggplant parmesian, vegetable quiche and blackberry frozen yogurt). The most important thing they had was a fleet of little red wagon, which Anna was immediately drawn to. We managed to pick delicious peaches and blackberries in between showers. Anna really got into the spirit of things, especially the blackberries. She immediately zeroed in on the ripe berries (which were conveniently at her eye level) and proceeded to eat them as fast as she could grab them. The Mackintosh farm probably lost money on us that day. The peaches were absolutely delicious. Of course Anna was having such a good time picking that we came home with way too many peaches. Our neighbors were the recipients of our hard day's work and we managed to make a fresh peach pie.

Joe forgot about his flu symptoms as soon as he saw the tomato plants. It must be the Italian heritage, but he grabbed a bag and sprinted for the tomato patch. When Anna and I finally caught up with him, he looked like something right out of a scene from The Godfather tending his tomato plants (Note: Joe reminded me that is probably not the best analogy since the godfather dies of a heart attack while watering his tomatoes). It was a great day, despite the rain showers, and we highly recommend a trip to Mackintosh Fruit & Berry Farm (http://www.mackintoshfruitfarm.com/).