Saturday Celebration

Danny turns one year old on Nov 10th. Benny turns 4 years old on Nov 15th.  Michael turns 61 years old on Nov 17th and Jojo turns 1year old on Nov 17th as well. We typically try to have a monthly dinner and celebrate birthday celebrations then....this month we'll celebrate our November birthdays together on Thanksgiving Day. 

CoRielle invited us to join them today to celebrate Danny and Benny's birthday.  Nolan and Alex are working. Michael is preparing for a sermon. Grandpa, the girls and I joined CoRielle, Cy and Livie the Fly Park. 

Cy and Livie brought the boys gifts. Danny loved the crinkling paper as much as the gift. 

Benny is impressed with Danny's gift. He loved his too. 

 

Three of my favorite seven people in the world in one spot. 

Livie, Danny & Benny 

Livie, Josiah

Look at her go! 

Everyone had stepped and wobbled across these. Benny JUMPED from pad to pad. 

Livie excels at back flips. 

Cory does an amazing back flip too! 

Stacia and Danny 

It was hard to get good photos from the available angels. First they climbed a "high tower," grabbed a rope and swung into a pit of foam cubes. 

Go Allie! 

Yay, Stacia!

Danny loved jumping with Arielle

Look at those guys jump! Cory's a monkey! 

Arielle, Stacia, Livie, Allie

Jump, girls, jump!

 Grandpa and I had a nice visit and helped occupy Danny so Arielle could jump with the big kids! 

We decided to get lunch together after we finished at the jump park. When we asked where he wanted to go, Benny asked for a place with a cheeseburger. We found that place WITH a play area...

With lunch finished CoRielle headed home for the boys to nap. Cy and Livie came to our house.   Stacia and Livie began working on Benny's birthday cake.  These will turn into planets. She will bake most inside the cake so that they show up when the cake is cut....four of the planets will float above the cake on skewers of some sort, a rocket will blast off from the cake into the planets.  The party won't be until Thanksgiving....check back if you want to see how it all turns out. LOL 

While the cakes baked, and we visited, the girls played Twister. I am once again very thankful for the basement oven. 

Millie didn't get her morning romp and run...she was quite ready to play this afternoon. 

It was a great day...Grandpa enjoyed the outing. Michael was able to work on a sermon with quiet, I enjoyed being with the kids and grands, we got a bit of time with Josiah and Livie back at the house before they leave for an adventure to warmer areas. 

Friday Fun

Alex helped Michael up the fall lights. 

The sun rose this morning at 9:36 and set at 5:43 this evening. Tomorrow we are forecasted to have 8 hours and 1 min of sunlight. We are losing 7 minutes a day.

The lights make everything cheerier. These are NOT Christmas lights, they are our fall/winter lights. Michael is not happy they don't match...I am happy they are up and lit.

Stacia and I were surprised how DARK when we went out for Bible study. We can't sit at the river or on the mountaintop at 0700 any longer. 😂 We are nearing the end of the New Testament. 

Stacia has been talking about cutting her hair short. Arielle came over to give her an idea of what it would feel like to have short hair. 

In the end they went with a tamer look. Grandpa said she looked like Mickey Mouse in the first hairdo.

TGIF - the girls finished week 11 of school this week. We have  on from Peter Pan to Frankenstein.  

I got the rest of the kitchen picked up and found places to store our canning. We are brainstorming a better set up for canning, maybe under our stairs. 

I had hoped to have a photo of a brilliantly working oven tonight. Alas, the oven was looked it and he will be back with a part next week which will "hopefully" fix the oven. In the meantime I will close with this photo of Michael counter surfing while he Nolan initially worked on the oven.

We ended the evening with pizza and movies... "Sonic The Hedgehog," and "Yes Day."

A Well Oiled Machine

As part of Pastor Appreciation month our church presented me with a dozen beautiful yellow roses, as well as a card and gift for Michael, on Sunday. Thanks guys, we love and appreciate you as well. 

It was very sweet.  I am reminded of our church family often this week,  as it has prompted dad to sing the, "Yellow Rose of Texas,"  every time he enters the dining room. 

One more unexpected blessing from having Dad live with us. 

Our day progressed like a well-oiled machine. 

Stacia and I had dental appointments at 0830. We made it home in time for Stacia to go work on school, and for Allie  - who had gotten an early start on school - to jump into the car. 

She and I found a secluded spot to continue our Bible study.  

Michael had asked us to be home by 12:30 so he could make it to his appointment. We walked in the door at 12:20. SCORE. 

Stacia and Allie finished school. 

Grandpa asked for a sandwich - seems the breakfasts I make have more staying power than the oatmeal Michael gave him this a.m. He told me he didn't have toast or bacon. ::snort::  He ate and decided to nap. 

This gave me time to lug jars of applesauce and canning supplies back to the basement AND spend 45 minutes on the elliptical. I had just finished when Michael walked in the door. 

Dinner. 

An episode of Librarian.

Grandpa and Stacia went to bed.  

Michael met Nolan on the other side of the door when he went to take care of chickens. 

It all worked well - I love days like this. Many of our days are more like herding cats. 

Winter Prep

What in the world is going on outside the world of canning? What are they doing? 

 

Winter prep, of course. They are building a platform for what will be this year's sledding hill...IF we get the right amount of snow. Stacia has been dreading the snow, but she was getting excited at the possibilities for winter fun.  I promised hot chocolate from the deck...and Michael plans a warm fire...fun ahead. 

But inside the house there WAS canning...the last day of the apple marathon of 2021. The final case and a half of the produce tower processed and on the shelf.  These little stickers became the bane of my existence. Seriously, a sticker on EVERY apple...who wants little plastic stickers going into their applesauce....and this? Certainly adding insult to injury in my book! A tad bit excessive me thinks. 

The final load coming out of the canner...7 more quarts of apple juice. 

I'm going to add the tally here so I can judge how many cases to order next year. From a case of Granny Smiths and 1/2 a case of Honey Crisp we put away 20 bags of pie filling and 1 1/2 gallons of pear/apple juice. 

From five cases of Fuji apples we processed 65 quarts of various kinds of applesauce and 4 1/2 gallons of apple juice.  I only did 2 loads of dried apples. That is less than last year, but I can order more as the time goes by and dry them.... I checked and last year we had 48 quarts of applesauce. We ran out in October. I wanted a bit more...I'm happy with the outcome. 

Text notifications were going off all day as the youth organized a prank on Pastor Shannon. He had sprayed some silly string in his sermon on Sunday.  You can guess where this went.  LOL I needed to duck out early to take the girls to the store. Michael, Alex and Grandpa settled for YOYO night (you're on your own)....or the meals that goes down and back up? ::snort::  Anyway, the girls and I headed to the store and then planned to go on to church for youth and Bible study.  

Millie began to wildly bark....three moose in the garden area. I decided not to head out to the compost....the chicken's weren't impressed either. 

I clicked a couple of photos and jumped in the car instead. 

The kitchen is a mess - I'll work on that tomorrow. It's a GREAT feeling to know that we have jars of organic, sugar free applesauce for the year. The garden didn't produce enough to really can this year, so I'm happy to be able to order cases of things from co-op. 

Sweet Smelling Sauna

Our home has become  a steamy, sweet smelling sauna. That's what a day of running stock pots of apples and two canners will do to a home. It's a sticky, sweet MESS...but I decided not to do a deep clean up until I'm totally done.  Yes, today was about all things apples! 

I asked on Facebook to find which technique my friends thought would be the fastest....I could quarter, boil and sauce, I could peel, core, boil, blend ...I could use an Instant Pot or a Roaster....So many options... I finally could stall no longer and simply needed to get going.  

Wait - just at this minute I remembered it was VOTING day. This required a quick trip out with Michael. Seriously, I love working WITH people...and I think I was stalling for the girls to finish school. 

The girls FINALLY finished school. ::wink:: We put on Kenny G and Christmas Music and got to work. We  quartered, boiled and tried out our new sauce maker. The peels, pulp and seeds were put into the steamer/juicer. 

Don't feel bad about Allie's face -  all KNOW
they have the option to make faces - but I will 
still post. LOL 

Next we tried the peel, core, slice method. Michael came home yesterday with a new gadget...it was helpful. 

It's amazing how the new one doesn't "wobble." 

We put the slices in the dehydrator...

Holy snacking! 

...and filled our roaster and an Instant Pot. The 2nd Instant Pot STILL has the pear butter wanna be in it....some day....maybe...it will be butter.  Kareen had told me their favorite is BLUEBERRY applesauce. WHAT???? I added a couple of bags of blueberries from past picking adventures...

The girls were happy to mash it up. 

I thought I would love the roaster method, but stuff stuck to the sides. Maybe if I loaded it at night and let it slow cook that would be a good plan. BUT I wanted to do this specifically to add the blueberries. How do you can in a roaster? The sides get hot - but there's no liquid on the sides...just a bit scorched and the sauce itself was fine. Cleaning the pan however is a big bummer. Maybe I should spray the sides before filling it? Or maybe it's just for slow cooking when you make applesauce? 

It looks a bit odd in the picture below - but it's YUMMY. It's going to be great with yogurt or oatmeal. 

The Instant Pot wasn't much quicker than boiling quartered apples on the stovetop. It takes time to get to pressure, 5 minutes of cooking and then 10 min to cool down. I can boil them in 15 - 20 minutes. I threw the peels and cores from this method into the juicer as well. The roaster took about the same amount of time as the pot. I'm not sure how I would add blueberries using the saucer maker method. 

Seriously yummy hot drink

We began the day with 5 cases of Fuji Apples still to process...tonight there are 1 1/2 cases left...  This is today's haul...dried apples, 10 quarts of blueberry applesauce, 34 quarts of applesauce and it looks like I will have about a gallon of juice. I wanted to get 50 quarts of sauce and I'm at 44 with a case and a half to go...yes! 

These will sit overnight and I'll process them while the girls do school. I'm just too tired to boil, put them through the saucer and water bath them tonight. Tomorrow promises to be busy so I may save the last case for Thursday or Friday, but these are a priority tomorrow. 

The girls and I worked together for 6 1/2 hours. I'll empty the juicer one last time and be done for the night. I'm blogging to the pleasing sound of "pops" - it's so steamy and hot one of the new jars still wrapped in plastic sealed and popped. My memory told me we did 4 or 5 cases of apples last year in one day. Stacia told me it took her, Krista and I several days. That made me feel better. LOL 

Mr. Gingerbread joined Benny in learning about the ABC's at their house today. 

School is more fun with Mr. Gingerbread

Look at the snazzy dressers...ties for all. It turns out Danny didn't like sharing his bouncer with Mr. Gingerbread yesterday. LOL 

It's been a long couple of days....Grandpa was up 3x last night. I'm going to bed. LOL 

Satisfying Monday

This was a pretty good Monday! 

One thing we all noted is how DARK it has become in the mornings. We didn't start to see glimmers of light until after 9 a.m.  This means we all got off to a bit of a slow start.  Except for Alex who has to be at work at 0500 regardless of the sun's patterns. 

Michael made a trip to the VA in Anchorage. SURPRISE. The tooth he's been telling them hurt for months is, in fact, broken...which is the source of his tooth  pain and most likely his ear pain. He is scheduled to drive back tomorrow to have it worked on. 

The girls have firmly implanted their noses in their books. They wrote Cento poetry today. Have you ever heard of this? I hadn't. It's the technique of "writing" poetry composed entirely of lines from other poems. They enjoyed the assignment and it created some interesting poetry. LOL  Personally, I am grieving the conclusion of Peter Pan. We are moving on to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  Have you ever read this one?  Mondays are always full for the girls....they wandered in and out of the kitchen where I was firmly planted.  

The silly chickens have been molting...we haven't had eggs for over a month...not a one! Look at this...an Easter Egger is coming through for us. Maybe the others will catch the idea????

I am inordinately happy to see these eggs. We've had to buy store eggs the past few weeks and we can TELL the difference. They are PALE. LOL 

The kitchen was my center of operations today as I continued to work on our tower of produce. I love this steamer/juicer....today I threw pear scraps, grapes which were on the edge and apple scraps...it simmered and steamed while I worked on the other projects. I like making a treat from what would otherwise be "garbage" and I still have the remains for the compost bed at the end of the process. 

I got all the pears processed. It only resulted in 8 quarts on the shelf. I DO still have a crock pot full of pear butter cooking...I've had it in there since Saturday night. At this point it is delicious pear sauce but I don't see any wonderful transformation happening.  Of course, I'm not 100% sure what pear butter is, to tell the truth.  I used some of our fresh apple juice, and cinnamon sticks, to can the pears instead of a simple syrup. I found the recipe in one of the Ball Books. I think they're going to taste good and we can make cider with the juice too. LOL Maria will not be able to eat any of them. 

Our oven is still not working and as I look over the pictures for the day I realize I forgot to call the appliance repairman. Michael brought home a lasagna which we cooked in the downstairs kitchen. Cooking down there brings back fond memories of CoRielle living there. For some reason the smoke alarm goes off EVERY time the oven gets to temp. A good fan takes care of it....the oven is NOT dirty. 

Why did we opt for a frozen dinner? One, the kitchen is a sticky mess with pear and apple debris and juice. Two, I met a friend for dinner at 5 p.m. I haven't gotten out to sit and visit for months and it was fantastic. 

I left juice simmering when I ran out to dinner. The fam  finished the project. I needed two more quarts in order to have a full canner full to water bath. I set the water bath to boiling and visited with the girls before they headed to bed.  Here's the day's accomplishments....

 

One load of dehydrated Fuji apples, eight quarts of Cinnamon spiced pears, and 6 quarts of pear/apple/grape juice.  The pear butter continues to reduce. LOL 

I didn't get a TON done...but I'm making progress and I'm satisfied with the day.  

Can you BELIEVE it is the FIRST OF NOVEMBER????