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Tuesday, July 14, 2015

When the Orchard Calls...

...and says, "We have two bushels of apples for you"...
 ...even if you weren't expecting their call, and weren't planning on making applesauce that day, but woke up thinking about having a sparkling clean bathroom by nightfall and fewer clothes in the dirty laundry chute, not 36 more quarts of applesauce for the cellar...
 ...you forsake your original plans and say instead, "We'll be right over to get the apples!  Thanks so much!"
 And then you spend all day (literally, ALL DAY) making applesauce.  And your house smells sweet, and your kitchen counters get sticky, and the kids take turns turning the handle of the food mill (and doing lots of other jobs, like going down to the garage to carry up more apples, and fetching more canning jars from the cellar, and filling the canner half-full with hot water, and taking the scraps of apples to the chickens, and stirring sugar into the applesauce, and putting canning flats into a pan of water to boil, and ladling applesauce into waiting jars), and your house heats up to about 150 degrees, more or less,  ;-)  and you sweat buckets (but it's a good sweat, and you know a cool shower will feel nice that night), and you give thanks for children who are old enough (and willing enough) to be genuinely helpful, and you have to come up with something for supper so you make a simple meal of quesadillas because you don't have time to do any more than that, and you run out of sugar so you borrow from the neighbors, and you take the last jars out of the canner right before you take your little girl out of the bathtub, and you give goodnight hugs and then finally let yourself sit down to rest.
 And then you savor the feeling of accomplishment.   :)
And maybe you run the numbers...  :)
~ 1 day,
~ 2 bushels of Lodi apples,
~ $28.70 spent,
~ 2.1 miles from your house to where the apples were grown,
~ 0 disposable containers needed for storing and shipping the apples,
~ 6 workers (if you count Moriah, which maybe you shouldn't) ;-),
~ 5 bowls of fresh applesauce fed to the children at lunch (prompting them to declare that they like hot applesauce and that they should eat it that way more often!),
~ an unmeasured amount of sugar (probably good that you don't know an exact amount because you might be startled ;-)...with these apples being Lodi ones, rather than the sweeter Yellow Delicious that you normally get in the fall to use for applesauce, more sugar was needed)  ;-),
~ 36 quarts to put in the cellar,
~ 1 BIG project done, well before Baby is due!  :)

Maybe after you recover for a few days, you'll be ready for another applesauce-making day.

36 quarts isn't enough for the winter, you know!  ;-)

5 comments:

  1. Nothing like a change of plans..and what delicious changes they were!!

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  2. Yes, definitely a good change of plans. There is something very special in those kinds of memories you are making with the kids, that alone is worth the work, not to mention the wonderful pantry full of apple sauce.

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  3. Whew! You really did accomplish a LOT! I'm super-impressed! (Had you ordered those apples this spring, or you just got a call out of the blue?) So glad you have a good and big start to your applesauce project for the summer.

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  4. What a DAY!

    I couldn't help but notice that you use the phrase "canning flats" - and it gave me great peace of mine. Back when I was teaching foods at the University, I called them "canning flats" and the professor I worked under thought I was absolutely crazy - said she'd never heard of that before. Now at last, I know that my family isn't alone!

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  5. Thanks, friends! :)

    Sally - I didn't call Onyx Hill as early as I should have this year, so I missed out on cherries. :( But I did call a week or two ago to get my name on the list for peaches; and while I was talking with Ruby, I mentioned that if they ever had extra bushels of summer apples, I'd be glad to get them because of having a baby due in September and probably not being able to make applesauce in the fall like I usually do. I wasn't sure what would come of it, so I was pleasantly surprised when she called and said they had them for me. :)

    Rebekah - OF COURSE they're called "canning flats!" Whatever else would they be called??? :) What did your learned professor call them? :)

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