LAMA Lab’s Perfect Fall Day at Chudleigh’s Farm!
Some days are made for lab meetings. Other days are made for muddy shoes, apple baskets, suspicious fruit, and an alpaca that looks just enough like a llama to become an instant celebrity.
The LAMA Lab’s outing to Chudleigh’s Farm landed firmly in the second category. It had everything a good fall day should have: crisp air, rows of apple trees, friendly animals, a relaxed lunch, and the kind of easy team laughter that happens when everyone steps away from screens for a while.
The apple picking began with high hopes and full bags
The first order of business was, of course, apple picking. Chudleigh’s Farm offered exactly the kind of orchard scene everyone hopes for in the fall: trees heavy with fruit, leaves starting to turn, and enough space for the group to wander, compare finds, and debate which apples looked most worthy of the bag.
The team moved through the rows with different strategies. Some went straight for the brightest apples they could spot. Others inspected branches carefully, searching for the perfect mix of colour, size, and shine. A few seemed to enjoy the hunt as much as the harvest, ducking under branches and calling out when they found a promising cluster.
Of course, not every apple was a winner.
That turned out to be part of the fun.
Rotten apples became the unexpected comedy of the orchard
Every lab trip needs a little drama, and ours came in the form of the rotten apple discoveries.
At first, someone would reach toward what looked like a perfectly decent apple, only to give it a closer look and realize it was well past its prime.
The rotten ones had personality. Some were soft in places that apples should not be soft. Some had mysterious dents. Some looked fine from one side and then revealed their true nature with a dramatic turn.
Rather than dampen the mood, they made the picking better. They turned a simple orchard walk into a miniature treasure hunt, where the treasure was sometimes a crisp apple and sometimes a very funny tale.
The animals stole more than a little attention
After apples came animals, and the group was more than ready to be charmed.
Chudleigh’s Farm had the kind of cute farm residents that immediately slow everyone down. There were curious faces, gentle movements, and plenty of moments where someone paused mid-conversation just to point and say, “Look at that one.”
Then came the alpacas.
This alpacas were not just any alpaca. They looked remarkably like a llama, which, for a group called LAMA Lab, felt almost too perfect. They had the long-necked charm, the expressive face, and just enough attitude to make them feel like unofficial mascots had been waiting for us all along.
A perfect fall day, start to finish
What made the day memorable was not any single moment, though the alpaca came close. It was the combination. The wandering. The joking. The shared discoveries. The small surprises that made everyone laugh.
By the end of the day, the bags were fuller, the camera rolls were richer, and the team had a new shared memory to carry back with them. Chudleigh’s Farm delivered exactly what a fall outing should: fresh air, good food, adorable animals, and enough laughter to make even the rotten apples feel like part of the harvest.
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