Applesauce is SO delicious, sweet times, AND some quick newsflashes!

As my dear hubby makes me coffee on this birthday morning, I'm blogging to you from bed. :) Since I share a birthday with my dear niece, Ivy, all our kids are at her place for a birthday sleepover, netting me a very quiet morning and Jason and I a birthday hike just the two of us later on. I've already gotten a wonderful sandwich hug from my parents and Jason said "Yes, my lady" :) when I asked him to raise the shades for me, so I am feeling well loved and pampered this morning. And it's a gorgeous morning with a high in the low 60's today. I guess my order was received and fulfilled!! I'm pretty grateful for this birthday morning netting me some additional rest as my body did a pretty major nose dive the last few days after a series of REALLY long food processing days surrounded by other days of pushing, pushing, pushing... I've reflected a few times recently with others about how ironically trying to live "sustainably" has not necessary led to a life that is sustainable for the humans. So Jason and I are dabbling in conversations we hope to engage in more fully soon (come on WINTER!) on how to make our lives here more sustainable for us too. In the meantime, I still cannot turn down gorgeous unsprayed apples that are falling from our friends' trees and rotting. Hence this update:

Apples, apples and more apples:

The "year of the apple" continues around here. Saturday we made applesauce. So. Much. Applesauce. It ended up being over 90 quarts when the canner finished at 1 a.m. or so. Some yellow sauce from apples given to us and then our favorite pink Liberty sauce from the above mentioned trees. I went to bed bone tired and happy. I love those kinds of food processing days but my body is telling me that it needs more rest surrounding them if I'm not gonna tank afterwards (hello 44 year old body). Lesson learned?!?!?! I made some apple butter too and we pulled out plenty for fresh eating. So we are eating (and drinking) apples in all the ways! Jason and the girls went and picked apples on Saturday morning while I prepped things at home. I had a delightful pre-birthday hike with two friends that morning and, between that and Jason being occupied with chores, it was nearly noon when "applesaucing" commenced. 

Then Sunday we picked the remaining apples from our kitchen garden tree. This tree had already given us and our pigs (and chickens) several bushels of apples in drops and there were still lots hanging on (4 bushels in fact). They are not the most delicious fresh eating apple (though, when ripe, nothing to complain about), but they are wonderful dried and for baking. So between mom and I, we will have enough dried apples for the winter and for sharing! Jonathan and Luca swung by and Luca thought they were just fine for fresh slurping/gnawing!

My favorite creation of the day was a little "apple person" to add to Mom's fall decorations!

Sweet times:

It's hard to find the right words to describe how wonderful it was to have my second cousin, Colette, and her son, Birch, come for a short, but oh so sweet, visit from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning. The night before they left one of my kiddos was moaning how "there's nothing to look forward to" and apparently the morning they were leaving, her son was saying how he didn't want to leave and wanted to stay longer. So all our appetites are whetted for a longer visit next time! Birch is 8 and Terah noted how lovely it was to have a playmate who was between her and Alida's ages. Whatever it was, there was magic in their connection and they had such a marvelous time. Saturday night, we were treated to the fruits of their labors with a shadow puppet show!

Colette and I have reconnected in recent years with sporadic but depth-filled email exchanges. So having time for a hike to expand upon what cannot be contained in an email was such a gift!

They both just dove right into Tangly Woods' living - Birch playing with the kiddos and Colette helping with applesauce (and doing dishes - she washed all 90 applesauce rings for me!!!!!). Really hoping it won't be too long before we do it again!

And a blogpost would seem inadequate without a few LUCA photos. We swapped our Luca day this week before our Jason's birthday and so enjoyed a half day with him yesterday. He seems to really enjoy his wake up duties and joining the girls in their bunk bed first thing. And then there's lots of playing and grabbing our faces and an extensive nappy routine (though yesterday's was remarkable low key in comparison) and high chair play time with a little food to the side and so so many snuggles! He reached for Terah once and she came swooning into the kitchen to tell me!

This one pretty much says it all!

Newsflash 1: Terah finished her first comforter top for donating to MCC.

Newsflash 2: Jason is now awaiting the results of his sleep study but we strongly suspect he'll be joining the scores of others using CPAP machines.

Newsflash 3: We have another driver at Tangly Woods!

So this is how we drove to Emily and Jonas' last night! I was not actually scared of her driving, we just happened to go over a speed bump right as I took the photo!