Autumn is my favorite season and unfortunately it passed by much too quickly this year; after Thanksgiving there is a frantic race to Christmas and everyone forgets about pumpkins, golden leaves and Honey Crisp apples.Since moving to the Midwest I've wanted to go apple picking and finally at the age of 26 I got the chance to go to a farm orchard located an hour south of Chicago in Indiana. Karyn of Dethrose Vintage and I went on a sunny and unseasonably warm Sunday way back in October. Oddly enough it seemed like everyone else in the blogosphere had also gone apple picking the same weekend so I ended up sitting on these photos until now.
It only cost two dollars to get into County Line Orchard and you only pay for the apples you pick (by the pound). Besides the apples there is also a corn maze, pumpkin patch and our favorite, apple cider and pumpkin DOUGHNUTS! So delicious.
Obviously we had to fortify ourselves with delicious doughnuts before all that strenuous apple picking! The apple cider version was my favorite, it was a cake rather than a yeast doughnut and was soft and fluffy. It was also dusted with cinnamon sugar! The pumpkin doughnut was also tasty but with the icing it was a bit too sweet for my tastes.
There is a wide variety of apples to choose from but I mainly stuck to my favorite, the Fuji.
Karyn and I actually saw people eating apples right after they picked them-- Karyn is just pretending to take a bite as we were a little weirded out about not washing them first!
I'd been wanting to wear this red 1950s calico print square dancing dress for months but never found the right occasion for it. I'm glad I wore it to the orchard as not only do I match the apples, the color pops in all the photos! It was also warm enough that day that I'm wearing red SANDALS in October.
Karen is wearing a little swiss dot 1940s dress, she wished it had a fuller skirt to gather up more apples.
Since I was wearing short sleeves I loaded up on my autumn-colored bracelets including 2 Bakelite bangles (the yellow ones) and my slightly crazy 1960s acorn bracelet.
I bought this bracelet with a $5 gift card I'd gotten from Unique Thrift Store a while back. It straddles the border of good taste but who doesn't love a good piece of kitschy jewelry every once in a while?
Our favorite part of the orchard was a section housing the more mature, taller trees. The growth was denser so it felt like we were in a fairy tale or the new TV show, Once Upon a Time.
The deeper we went into the orchard the more we found, including this sunflower field and a corn maze pictured below. The maze wasn't scary, the corn wasn't very tall so we could see our way out!
When we were posing in the corn we felt like 1950s girls doing a wholesome photo shoot for an apple growers' association... or the state of Indiana! Do you think the tourism board would hire us to promote their agriculture?
Karyn twirling in the corn. We have a history of twirling in pretty vintage dresses.
Sadly I didn't buy a pumpkin but we couldn't pass up the chance to take photos in the pumpkin patch. Oddly enough the patch was located next to the parking lot!
The blowup jack-o-lantern just seemed so cheerful. This was the first year I didn't carve a pumpkin, mainly because there's not a good place in my apartment to display it.
OUTFIT DETAILS:1950s Square Dancing Dress: Buffalo Exchange, ChicagoRed Sandals: Zappos.com 5 years agoVintage Leather Belt: Brown Elephant Thrift, Chicago1960s sunglasses: Chicago Antique Store1960s acorn bracelet: Unique Thrift, Chicago1970s Leather Satchel Purse: Garage Sale, ChicagoVintage Bakelite & Resin Bangle Bracelets: Various Chicago Thrift StoresSee even more photos in Karyn's 2-part post: Part 1 and Part 2. Thanks again Karyn for going to the orchard with me and taking these wonderful photos!
Goodbye Autumn, hello Winter! I'm looking forward to peppermint mochas, baking and decorating cookies, snow (but not too much) and visiting the Christkindl German Christmas Market downtown.
What are your winter traditions? Are you sad to see autumn end?