Apple Day

Friday was Apple Day! We spent the whole day processing 2 bushels of apples. We started off the day filling my big electric cooker with apples for applesauce. Then the boys started to peel apples for apple pies.

We bought a mixed bag of apples and it contained many different kinds including this one that had red flesh. It was a very sweet apple.

The boys liked running the peeler and then eating and playing with the apple peels.

Nathan thought this looked so cool he wanted to take a picture of it.

Some of the apple slices I put in the freezer for future pies and some I put in my new dehydrator. My old one died on me and I bought a base and four more trays. So now I can have a tower of dried apples!

After lunch, we set the strainer up outside and Deborah ran it a little bit...

...but Nathan was my biggest help. He ran almost all the apples through the strainer for me.

At the end of the day: 27 qts of applesauce, 4 pies, one crock pot full of apple butter cooking, and a tower full of dried apples.

Ahoy there mateys!

We started this year's literature discussion group with a rousing discussion of Treasure Island. To get into the spirit of things, we let the children dress up. My children dressed up with a vengence, complete with "scars" and "tattoos".

We had four pirates, Jim Hawkins, and Jim Hawkins' mother. We had apples (from the apple barrel) and grog (apple cider). Everyone had a great time "and you may lay to that".

The Perfect Watermelon

Look at this beauty! Guess how much it weighed?

37.5 pounds! And it was just perfect inside.

Take away our shrubbery!

This year, we had had it with our shrubbery beds. The edging had disappeared under the grass and we didn't even like most of the shrubbery that came with the house.

We were inspired by what we had done in the front of the house so we started in and ripped out the bed on the west side of the house. The children are pulling out the old ineffective edging.

Good bye shrubbery. Especially the thorny shrubbery.

The finished product. Well, almost finished. I have some irises from a friend to plant. Next year, we'll see those daylilies and iris nicely filling out the bed.

The west bed looked good, so we started in on the south and east beds.

Finished product (plus future iris).

Old east side with out of control bushes.

Nice new east side. Look at the straw on the left side of the picture. That is how much new grass we had to add. The old edging was that far into the yard.

#200

Yep, there it is - number 200.

Besides reaching the zucchini milestone, I canned grape syrup and peach syrup for pancakes. And I made tomato sauce. My last batch of tomatoes to be canned - yeah! I'm heading into the homestretch. Applesauce on Friday, apple butter on Saturday and pumpkins in October and I'm done!

A visit with Grandma and Grandpa

In the last week of August, my parents came for a visit. It was a busy week. On Sunday, we went up to a state park and checked out the lighthouse there.


And we spent some time on the beach. It was a little too windy and cool for any adults to get in the water...

...but of course, the children don't mind the cool weather. At least everyone but Aaron didn't mind.

He preferred to stay dry and play at the edge.

Deborah, in contrast, really enjoyed her time in the sand.

My dh and me.

My dad brought his model train set for us and he and Nathan put together the general store.

Mom taught the children how to use leaves and ferns from the woods to make cards.

One of the finished products.

And she 'drip painted' with Deborah. At the end, this picture will look like a grove of trees.

One night, we stayed up and shelled our popcorn. Yes, the popcorn that has been sitting in a bushel basket in our garage for over a year. It was hard work, harder than I expected. There were many sore thumbs that night.

This was Stephen's crop last year - Cherokee Long Ear popcorn.

The finished product - whew!

Well done Deborah!

Deborah finished her first knitted washcloth. She did all the knitting except for the cast-on and the bind-off.

Garden report

Well, it is a rainy Sunday here and I don't have any canning to do and I'm waiting for the rain to stop to go pick any zucchinis or canteloupes that are ripe. So I thought I'd catch up on all the food pictures that I've taken. We've been having a lot of pasta primavera. Makes me hungry just looking at this picture.

We've also had some great watermelons. My dh is holding one of our Charleston Gray watermelons. They are an old fashioned type watermelon with seeds and a thick rind. I personally like them better than the seedless kind.


Looks pretty, doesn't it?

We've also been picking our French Orange canteloupe. They are small but oh so amazingly sweet.

And of course, I've been canning. Left to right, peach butter, tomatoes, and watermelon pickles.

Aaron's white eggplants finally grew long enough to harvest. We grew them from seed and we weren't sure if they would even produce anything before the first frost.

Aaron requested stuffed eggplant so I stuffed his white eggplant. The funny thing is that the white skins turned brown after cooking.

Yesterday I made salsa (on the left) and peach preserves (on the right). It was a long day. I had forgotten how long it takes to make salsa. It is a lot of chopping.

And we have more to come.

And more still. Good thing it's been a little cool and we don't want to use our picnic table for eating!

Catch up Time

Due to tomatoes, peaches, re-doing all the mulch beds around the house, and school starting, I've fallen behind on my blog. So here's a catch up entry. First some fair pictures. My dh is showing Deb the inside of the grain wagon.

Stephen as seen from the inside.

Aaron and I on the ferris wheel.

A cool tiny frog Nathan found.

We went to our local historical society's ice cream social. It was a great night. Nice and hot (well hot for us here in the tundraland) and just right for eating ice cream outsite.

They had some old time games that the children could participate in and win prizes. Here Stephen is getting the hang of plate twirling.

We also had a Ford Tri-motor plane come to town. We went to watch it land and take off. The children were suitably impressed by the noise and the wind from the motors.

We also heard a lecture at the historical society. We had an "Erie Boat Captain" take us on a trip down the Erie Canal. Nathan is playing the part of a Hoggee, an orphan that drove the mules along the side of the Erie Canal. See the ladies playing the part of mules? It was a fun lecture and we learned a lot and had fun doing it.

Throughout the presentation, the captain would yell out "Low Bridge!" and everybody had to duck. The children really liked that part and would throw themselves on the floor.