Saturday, September 21, 2019

Preserving the Bounty

It was a spectacular day of ordinary things!

One of the benefits of living in a multi-generational nest is the pop up chances to connect. I PLANNED to spend the day preserving garden bounty and harvesting more. I took the past two days off to enjoy conference and have stuff that needs to be dealt with.....BUT I'm also fully aware this is a unique and changing season in our lives....so when Arielle came upstairs early and suggested I accompany her and Benny to the library.....I reasoned the day would be long enough to play AND work....I hopped into the shower. 

When I got out the party had grown. Stacia and Krista joined us. We were at the library when it opened, followed by a trip to Bishop's Attic, and Fred Meyers. Nothing exciting bought - but fun had by all. 
Me, Arielle, Stacia, Benny, Krista
 We jumped right to our list of tasks when we got home. Stacia made Root beer Float cookies for Josiah. Um - well - enough for all of us to have one on Sunday and Josiah to take home a dozen or so.  Krista began quartering apples.

I cut up and blanched more squash than I ever want to see again. I got it in the freezer and then discovered this box in the garage. Ugh.

Somewhere between the squash and the applesauce we got the last batch of pickles processed for the year.

We ended up trying two methods for making apple sauce. On the left is the batch that will go into a strainer. On the right is the batch that will be mashed and canned. I really am not sure which is quicker.....even after doing this side by side trial.

One of Krista's fellow employees sent home his strainer for us to use. It IS slick. 

In the end we had this much applesauce. 

Photo via Krista
 We ended up with oodles of squash, 7 more quarts of Kosher pickles, 20 quarts of applesauce AND 2 dozen big, root beer float cookies.  It was a great day.