By some miracle I was able to get Bubba up and out of the house before noon. I printed out a map of fruit farm locations in Brentwood and picked out a couple places that I wanted to check out, u-pick farms in particular. First stop was Smith Family Farms. The produce stand was open, but saw no one picking fruit. I had to say I was a little disappointed when they said they didn't have their orchard open for picking for another month or so. We bought a basket of cherries ($6/1.5 lb? basket) and a couple sweet yellow onions. The cherries didn't taste as sweet as I like. I should've went with my gut and passed on them. Our second stop was Dwelley Farms, another nearby produce stand located on a orchard. We purchased asparagus, small basket of olallieberries (I think that's what they're called), bulbs of garlic, and tomatoes.
From this point on I only wanted to find the u-pick farms. I wanted fresh picked off the tree cherries dammit. There were a couple south of where we were and headed that direction. Not even 5 minutes on the way we hit the jackpot and found a HUGE u-pick cherry tree orchard. There were a bunch of cars in the dirt parking lot. Yippee! We grabbed a bucket and got lost amongst the fruit filled trees. We sampled each tree we picked from to check out if we liked the way the cherry tasted. If we approved we picked from it. Even though there were a bunch of people there, we only occasionally saw them the closer we got to the main "drag" so we stayed off the beaten path where the trees were barely touched. We almost filled our bucket to the top. We left with a little over 8 lbs of sweet cherries ($20) and a bottle of Nunn Farms Extra Virgin Olive Oil ($10). $30 of good eatin'.
Next we stopped at Tachella Farms. It was a nice big produce stand with fresh frozen fruit pies. The pies were tempting but we didn't buy. We left with a bag of toasted corn nuts though. We passed on a strawberry u-pick field because it was packed full of people. Before we headed home we stopped by Pomeroy Farms to check what they had. They only had peaches ready for picking. Nectarines (one of my favorite fruits) and apricots weren't ready for another 1-2 weeks.They had a 5lb minimum purchase which kinda sucked. We don't like peaches that much but what the hell...we roamed through the trees and picked peaches anyway. I figure that I could make some pie and ice cream out of it. All I need is an ice cream maker. OHHH the possibilities of fresh fruit ice cream.
On the map we spotted an alpaca farm close by and wanted to check it out before we headed home. We came up to a small road that led to a home and huge gated pens of very sheared alpacas. It definitely smelled like an animal farm the moment we stepped out of the car. A very nice lady came out from the house to greet us. She was the mother of one of the owners. The owners were at an event and she was there to watch the fort while they were gone. She took us to the gate where the female alpacas were kept and they all came to us. Their long shaved necks and unshaved heads reminded me of fluffy lollipops. As she handed us cups of pellet formed food, she told us they're gentle animals and don't bite but really like treats. They had their faces in the cup of treats as soon as we entered their pen. One of them was more aggressive than the rest and took the cup out of my hand with it's mouth. The cup fell to the ground and it became a feeding frenzy. Although they were a little skittish when you pet them, they were very cute and sweet animals. They surely showed their herding instincts.
We were only out for 4 hours but we were exhausted and crashed when we got home. It was fun and kinda made up for my "getaway" vacation that I didn't have. I'll be back there to get some nectarines. You can see more pics of our day here.
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