After such a lovely morning at Harper’s Ferry my day wasn’t complete without heading north towards Catoctin Mountains to enjoy the Maryland countryside.
Actually I had a task to complete as the Maryland Forestry Department has a project to plant Black Walnut trees throughout the state and had asked for donations of those “horse-balls” which are huge green nut balls that are the outside of the Black walnut. As I spend time on a historical property with lots of Black walnut trees I collected a huge muck bucket of said horse balls to donate.
Truly any excuse to drive Maryland countryside is a good excuse. Taking a long country road on the long way home. As I was close to Catoctin Mountains well of course I had to continue on to the beautiful farm of Catoctin Mountain Orchard.
It is after all apple season and there is nothing better then fresh apples off of the tree.
One of my ways to back up my images and have them on an easy to load and view place is Flickr. I included this image with a couple more from the orchard visit and incredibly this image was “Explored” and now boasts over 11,000 views.
If you’re not familiar with Flickr and want a place to share your images with friends and family you should definitely check it out. It’s a friendly place and filled with ideas all around the world. I have visitors from Europe to Asia so it truly is a global place.
Photographer or no photographer Catoctin Mountain Orchard is an amazing place. Family friendly with all sorts of wonderful goodies and tons of pumpkins and apples of all varieties this time of year.
Autumn is such a wonderful time to get out and explore. The Indian summer days are glorious and the air is crisp and clean. I hope you are able to enjoy as much of it as you can and share your images!
Categories: Maryland
Emily Carter ~ Nature as Art 
what beautiful shots!
I have all sorts of great ones of the pumpkins on my cell phone Beth.
Lovely, just lovely!
Thank you very much.
Gorgeous autumn images, Emily. I love the apples!
I’m curious, why is the MFS planting black walnuts in particular? Our squirrels plant them everywhere, often in not the best of places!
Hi Eliza! Black walnuts are a native tree of Maryland so I suppose they want to make sure they survive well throughout the state. I put some out in my garden for my squirrels and even though they’ve never seen them before they knew exactly what they were and devoured them.
Around here, the squirrels plant more walnut trees than they eat it seems. Interestingly, crows will scrape and eat crushed ones off the road. My husband tries to hit as many walnuts in the road as he drives by, lol!
That’s funny!
Wonderful!
Thank you Ranjeet.
Beautiful post! I wish I would’ve known about the Maryland Forestry Dept. project about the black walnuts. I could’ve contributed a lot! We have 5 trees and to tell you the truth I don’t think a lot of them even though otherwise I am a tree hugger. I also will have to check this Orchard out you’ve mentioned. Looks absolutely gorgeous! And then finally I have a question? How do you have your signature on all the photos? I would love to have mine on the pics I take. Thank you for this lovely post!