I'm back...with some Elephant and Piggie books being read out loud the background, along with Jason "noodling" on the guitar. I'm happy to report that I had 100% seal rate on all the canning from yesterday. I know this might not sound like much, but it makes this canner happy... All the jars are washed and tucked into the root cellar. This blurry photo was taken last night before the new round of jars was added, but it shows off what 95 or so quarts of applesauce look like on the shelves! Nearly every year we wonder where the apples for sauce will come from and where sauce-making will land in the season.
This August, the timing was perfect in that dear friends offered an abundance of apples from a thriving Yellow Delicious tree and it just so happened that we were able to squeeze in apple picking and sauce making with Tala before her departure. Picking apples was something on her "bucket list" for the year and we squeezed it in with little time to spare - "thanks" to the squirrels, there was no apples for picking at Tangly Woods! On Friday (Aug 20), Jason took the girls and Tala to Waynesboro to pick apples (I had to work for CJP that day with my first orientation events) and then Saturday we got into sauce making bright and early!
I wasn't expecting 12 buckets of apples from one tree! We had our work cut out for us. But with good help in the house and eager piggies outside enjoying the fresh apple scraps, we made an excellent team! Even Terah was busy wielding a sharp knife...
We had every burner on our stove and the outdoor propane burner working overtime.
And at the end of the day, our porch looked like this! The pink jars on the left were an experiment, adding elderberries to the cooking apples. It makes a beautiful pink sauce but thus far the family is not convinced of the flavor alteration. So we'll likely stick with straight apples in the future. I didn't have 100% seal rate on these as I was working hard to re-use lids. So a few quarts made their way into crockpots to cook down for apple butter. And from there some of it made it's way to the dehydrator to make scrumptious apple leather (It came out of the dehydrator the morning we took Tala to the airport and I was so glad to have a nutrient source to offer her for her long journey that didn't take up much space)!!
Just so we don't give the impression that all we do in August is chop and can things, I'll include in this post two very fun outings that we enjoyed in the past few weeks.
It's probably been years that my dear friend, Wendy, has been interested in introducing our family to a sweet spot along the North Fork of the Shenandoah River that adjoins some land that has been in her family for many years. With grape season upon them, the window for this year was again closing. So squeezed between many other things, we enjoyed a glorious evening together along the river. It was with good reason that she was eager to share that spot with us!! We met up at a little ice cream food truck and then caravanned to the point that only the 4 wheel drive vehicle my parents loaned us could proceed. That got us to within a short walk through the woods from the river.
It was beautiful! And, despite the river being very low, it had an amazing deep swimming channel in the middle. Jason declared it the best river swimming spot he'd ever enjoyed, and I think I'll have to agree. We were joined by a little muskrat, water snake, dragonflies, crayfish, bigger fish and (thankfully only seen after we were done swimming) a snapping turtle. We enjoyed a picnic on the bank until the sun started setting and the mosquitos came out in full force. I'm really hoping that it won't be years until we are able to enjoy that spot again. And hopefully next time Mark will be able to join us!
Then, just this past Sunday, we also squeezed in another outing in a different direction - to another spot enjoyed by loved ones who were eager to introduce it to us. In celebration of Kali's bday, Jonas' bday and his last day at work, we took a jaunt with Emily, Jonas and Ivy to Switzer Lake for the afternoon. This lake is not a swimming lake (though I think some of the people who were on boats and "falling in" to the water might have been stretching the rules a bit). We enjoyed some canoeing and kayaking, following hang out time around a fire (where I got a little snooze, and lots of chatting, eating and Rook playing occurred). Here was my view for part of the time:
But more of the time, I was looking out at the lake! There were lovely large shade trees, making it incredibly pleasant to be outside on a warm day.
Boating was a big hit!
And the photo doesn't quite get it, but some of us on the shore couldn't get over how cute Terah and Ivy were in the middle of the canoe with their big sun hats being the predominant thing poking up over the edge of the boat.
Tala got to experience another first just two days before heading home. She seemed to enjoy and pick up on kayaking very quickly.
Throughout all these activities of the last few weeks, the clock ticking towards saying goodbye was ever present on our minds. So as we moved from counting the months to counting the weeks to counting the days to counting the hours happened, we fit in hugs as often as possible.
More on that in a later post. I'm catching up by moving from the easiest posts to write to the hardest!
I'm back...with some Elephant and Piggie books being read out loud the background, along with Jason "noodling" on the guitar. I'm happy to report that I had 100% seal rate on all the canning from yesterday. I know this might not sound like much, but it makes this canner happy... All the jars are washed and tucked into the root cellar. This blurry photo was taken last night before the new round of jars was added, but it shows off what 95 or so quarts of applesauce look like on the shelves! Nearly every year we wonder where the apples for sauce will come from and where sauce-making will land in the season. 
This August, the timing was perfect in that dear friends offered an abundance of apples from a thriving Yellow Delicious tree and it just so happened that we were able to squeeze in apple picking and sauce making with Tala before her departure. Picking apples was something on her "bucket list" for the year and we squeezed it in with little time to spare - "thanks" to the squirrels, there was no apples for picking at Tangly Woods! On Friday (Aug 20), Jason took the girls and Tala to Waynesboro to pick apples (I had to work for CJP that day with my first orientation events) and then Saturday we got into sauce making bright and early!
And at the end of the day, our porch looked like this! The pink jars on the left were an experiment, adding elderberries to the cooking apples. It makes a beautiful pink sauce but thus far the family is not convinced of the flavor alteration. So we'll likely stick with straight apples in the future. I didn't have 100% seal rate on these as I was working hard to re-use lids. So a few quarts made their way into crockpots to cook down for apple butter. And from there some of it made it's way to the dehydrator to make scrumptious apple leather (It came out of the dehydrator the morning we took Tala to the airport and I was so glad to have a nutrient source to offer her for her long journey that didn't take up much space)!!
It's probably been years that my dear friend, Wendy, has been interested in introducing our family to a sweet spot along the North Fork of the Shenandoah River that adjoins some land that has been in her family for many years. With grape season upon them, the window for this year was again closing. So squeezed between many other things, we enjoyed a glorious evening together along the river. It was with good reason that she was eager to share that spot with us!! We met up at a little ice cream food truck and then caravanned to the point that only the 4 wheel drive vehicle my parents loaned us could proceed. That got us to within a short walk through the woods from the river. 
No comments:
Post a Comment