We Picked Our Own Florida Oranges :)

Showcase of Citrus

          A couple of weeks ago I read about a place where Staci and I could go pick our own Florida oranges.  The weather was nice enough today, so off we went.  I live in Kissimmee, so the trip there was 23 miles, approximately 45-minute drive.  Showcase of Citrus was very easy to find, and well worth the drive for an afternoon of fun.  If you are reading this, I must warn you this post is very picture heavy.  There were just so many things I wanted  to capture on film. 

          The farm was gorgeous, with a definite Florida feel.  There were quite a few activities to do there, more than we were expecting.  We started off exploring the store.  It is all covered, open air, and full of flavor.  Literally LOL the first part we entered had dozens of different types of hot sauces to sample, as well as a nice variety of honey to taste.  I wanted to try so many of the hot sauces but made the mistake of actually trying one.  Oh, my goodness was it HOT!!!  Thankfully the honey was right next to it to help soothe my poor singed taste buds. It was one and done for the hot sauces LOL.

          Off to the other half of the store which was full of BBQ sauces, jams, and salsas. It also had souvenirs, plus a juice bar.  This side of the store is where we got the bags to “mine” gemstones, feed the animals, and our bag to fill up with oranges.  The basic bag for mining was $8 which is what we chose.

          We also got a cup of carrots and cup of corn feed for the animals, they were $3 each.  I wish we had skipped the corn and just got double carrots.  We walked over to the animal area and no animals nearby.  There were a few chickens, but they were in a pen. There was no real way to get them the corn, but we tried. We really wanted to feed the horses the carrots, so we stated walking around the large pen where they were kept.

          It took a bit but finally the emu came over to us. It was funny to look at LOL it liked the corn.  You had to be quick with tossing the feed because it once nipped at Staci when she tried to just drop some. I guess the emu is the scout for the others because after that the small horses came over and ate the carrots. 

 

          We ran out of those too quickly.  We did not have any to offer the kangaroo who ventured over last.  Yep the farm had an emu and a kangaroo LOL.  The orange groves were right next to the animals so off we went to pick our fruit. 

          I made the mistake of letting the sales lady talk me into the $18 medium sized bag LOL It took forever to fill that thing up. I would have been happy with the $11 small size.  Now I have so many oranges I am going to have to learn how to make marmalade LOL.

          Once we had all our fruit picked it was time for me to explore the store. The ladies there were very nice, and they let you sample before buying, which was a good thing. I found out that while good, I did not like the sweet based salsas they offer.  I ended up getting the salsa Verde and the fire roasted salsa.  We also got a spicy sweet BBQ sauce and a vinegar-based BBQ sauce.  It tastes more like a Greek dressing to me. 

          As I mentioned before there were so many picture perfect spots there that I wanted to pose Staci in front of LOL she is not a fan though of taking pictures LOL.  She indulged me for a bit 😊 hence all these pictures.