Somehow I got it into my head that we needed to go pick apples this year and I was going to make applesauce. I think it's because I got a warm water bath canner thing from a lady in my ward, so I was bound and determined to actually use it!
I found an orchard that had Fuji apples (my favorite) and on the first weekend in October, we headed out! The farm was absolutely lovely and did nothing to sway me away from my own dreams of some day owning a farm. After bumping and twisting through their fields, we came upon the orchards and began looking for trees marked as Fujis. We picked a whole bag full, which is about half a bushel, and called it good. We probably would have lasted longer if I'd thought to make the kids bring sweatshirts-- it was a little cooler up in the hills than we were expecting! (I think that was the first day of the fall that the temperature dropped, too.)
But it was lovely being out in the fresh air and wandering around with the family.
And the apples were pretty good, too!
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| The hardest part was not letting Colton eat the rotten apples on the ground-- ick! |
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| Rachael had arrived late the night before and was game for coming along |
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| Using the little hookie things to grab and catch the apples was surprisingly rewarding |
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| By the time we finished, that little bag was jammed full of apples |
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| Ryder wraps his blankie around himself to keep warm |
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| Funniest picture of Colton EVER-- seriously, what is his hair doing here??? |
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| Now he looks a bit more normal. He liked "helping" with the picking! |
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| Notice Bentley wearing my jacket in an effort to keep warm |
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| I like this picture a lot |
True to my word, the next week I managed to get together with a couple friends and we canned applesauce! One friend actually knew how to do this, so she was our "expert" (Thanks, Tracy!), and another friend had one of those Kitchen-Aid attachments that did ALL the work of coring and peeling the apples for us (Thanks, Sarah!), and I brought my warm water bath, and felt very helpful for having one! Between my half-bushel and my friend's apples, we managed to make 14 quarts of applesauce, so I feel the entire adventure was quite successful!
I hope we can manage to do this again next fall (with our new little baby in tow)!
2 comments:
So people around here seem to not do things like this. I got all excited-- "let's go apple picking somewhere?" and they look at me like, why? Why would you pick your OWN fruit when you can just drive 2 minutes to the store? Anyway, i miss it. I'll probably just knock on someone's door who has an apple tree and ask if i can get a couple. Lovely pics!
Oooh yum. Bringing back memories. :) Though actually when my mom would make applesauce we didn't ever bother core-ing or peeling - just quarter them, soak 'em in water, and put them in the foley food mill. She'd jar (literally) hundreds of little glass jars of them - I'm still not sure how her arm didn't fall off from all the food-mill-ing. Anyway. Yum! :)
Then there was the Christmas she gave me a foley foodmill (basically a giant blade) and I carried that on through airport security. Yep - I sweet talked the TSA person into letting me on the plane!! :o)
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