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???? 

Random Glimpses of October

This is the post where I share glimpses we want to remember, things which may not make an entire blog post on their own. LOL 

Michael's leg is healed up and he is back on his mission to fill the woodshed for the winter. 

We still have enough dead trees on our place to keep us in winter wood. New this year is this wood splitter. We've been renting one every year. It is nicer to have our own and be able to tackle this job in daily chunks instead of a one-day marathon of wood splitting. We sure appreciate their hard work!

Fall walks are the best. Stacia and Allie made it a practice to break for walks this month. 

Because - sugar free and all like them. 

The chickens LOVE fall when I begin to harvest plants and they get lots of extra-ready-to-eat-greens! LOL 

Arielle and the boys dropped by. Benny wanted to play hide and seek. Michael hid. Benny and I looked and looked. I heard him. I knew he had to be in the entry area SOMEWHERE. We finally found Michael in the closet....and then Benny told me to go count....and HE hid. LOL 

Benny & Grandpa

If GG can read to Benny, Papa ought to be able to read to Danny. 

Danny and Papa

THIS is quite the system....I appreciate Michael devising a way to clean the chimney AND keep most of  the mess from the floors. 

Watching TV with Millie is quite often amusing. 

Nolan took some time off Mid-October. He spent MOST his time catching up on college, but he and the girls also enjoyed working through several Escape Room scenarios Allie had. 

The washer (which Michael had found free on Craig's list) and dryer (which came with this house), both died this month. We do a LOT of laundry around here, lots of bed linens washed daily. Michael went in search of a washer and brought this home. We love it. It holds more and it's quiet...and fun to watch fill. He had a free dryer from the Craig's List find. He brought that inside. It's janky but working. Whatever time it serves will put off having to buy a new dryer. Our oven is also out - it's not been a good fall for appliances.  

The moose are back EVERYWHERE this month. On this fall day I stepped out to go feed the animals and surprised this moose. 

I took the girls shoe shopping. Whilst I DID buy them shoes, I couldn't resist a new pair of FUR LINED crocs...so bright and cheery. I think these are essential for embracing the upcoming winter. 

A simple shadow of what is to come....snow in the morning, warm in the evening. Nothing is sticking. 

Oct 15th 

Oct 21st

Oct 21st

Just to document somewhere - this is not base housing - do not buy SIX BIG BAGS of CANDY in 2022.  You will only have 1 or 2 show up. 

Missing Pieces

 I hate it when a piece of a puzzle is missing. It does seem to be the condition of many puzzles.  I suppose learning to accept the reality of missing puzzle pieces is a sign of maturity.  I know there are many puzzle pieces missing in my life. That'll preach. Really. 

The girls, Grandpa and I headed to church this morning. Pastor did a GREAT job with the sermon today. The kids were in service and the sermon was interactive...we finished our series on Philippians.  ANYWAY - I was happy to have a few minutes to catch up with Kareen after church.  She shared how she had felt the need for a down day. Her thoughts resonated with me, a missing piece in my life's puzzle to consider? 

We headed for lunch and then home. Michael is fighting with a toothache/ earache and had stayed home - another missing piece of our family puzzle. He told me to sleep...and I crashed...long and hard.  Grandpa went down for a nap and I woke him up at 7:47 p.m. LOL It was that kind of day. 

I woke to a barking dog, the doorbell ringing and this sight. Ah, a table full of stalled work....but who cares??? We needed to rest and enjoy being....

Oh dear - what ever could be wrong? 

Mr. Gingerbread man has been sad on the top of a shelf at my home. The girls won - but no one claimed him....Benny took him home. He promised him adventures until the next contest....

It rained all night and all the snow is gone. It looks like fall once again. I'm thinking this will be the last week of fall. When the snow returns it will most likely stay....but tonight we had a Halloween without snow and ice to contend with - still only 2 groups at our door.  Maybe going door to door is a thing of the past...what's it like in your area? 

Fall Work Day

The girls and I worked all day on the tower of produce in the nook. 

We set up an assembly line. Stacia peeled and cored Granny Smith and Honey Crisp apples. She passed them on to Allie who added monk fruit and spices.

Then we packaged, vacuum sealed, and froze them. Twenty bags of apples rest in the freezer waiting to grace our winter table with pies and crisps.

We put the cores and peels into the juicer and ended up with a gallon of delicious fresh apple juice. 

I plan to use some of the juice to can pears. I need to research how to can the rest of the  juice. 

The girls continued working while I ran out for more spices mid day.  I had hoped to find another apple peeler corer - I was unsuccessful.  Allie got  the dehydrator filled with Fuji apples... they are drying now. Stacia got a load of pears prepped. They are now in the slow cooker.  I am hoping they will magically turn into Vanilla Spiced Pear Butter overnight. 

If they don't we already have a delicious pear sauce. 

How did I end up with a tower of produce in the nook?

I ordered five cases of Fuji apples from co-op to make applesauce for the year. Dad takes his pills in applesauce, we use it in oatmeal and for baking. We ran out last week. Mike suggested a case of Granny Smiths for pies. That makes six cases...we found an extra case of pears at the end of co-op. The easiest way to deal with them was to buy the case. LOL Dad loves pears and had been hinting I could can some. Seven cases of produce stacked in the nook. 

We processed 1/ 1/2 cases of apples and 1/2 a case of pears. We have much more to do...but it is enough for today. 

We are relaxing with Grandpa, sipping hot apple juice while watching,  "Sword in the Stone," and "Inkheart." 

We will work on more apples tomorrow.