Applesauce Prom

It’s apple season, y’all!  This week we went on a field trip to an orchard, and Mom and I came back with  apples.  The lady that we spoke to was kind enough to show us the “2nd grade” apples that she uses when she’s making sauce.  For $12/bushel (vs. $26 for the ones with no blemishes), we decided on three bushels of Mutsu, Golden Delicious and Winesap for applesauce and canning. 

When we got started on our project today, my Nana said, “You know… there’s this company called Motts…” which of course the Camp Guy thought was terribly funny!  I have to tell you, though, with no ill will to Motts, they never had so much entertainment in the kitchen as we do!

Here are some of the Mutsu and Golden Delicious in Mom’s sink.  You can see some of them have a few have spots, but even though we were not shy about cutting them out, we lost very few apples.  I will definitely go this route again next year!

  This is my apple peeler, corer, slicer.  I don’t know how to tell you how much I love this thing.  Many, many thanks to Aunt Jane for spending so much time working on it today.

Here is small portion of the apples we did, soaking in a lemon juice solution, waiting for their turn in the pot.

After cooking and a trip through the food mill, here is… TA-DA – Applesauce!  At one point, as I was stopping again to take another picture for you we started joking about posing, to which I replied, “It’s not prom!”  Aunt Jane immediately declared that yes, it was indeed – Applesauce prom!  I have no idea what that means, but being a bit giddy from hours in the kitchen makes many things funny, thus Applesauce Prom was born.

We ended up the day with 22 quarts and 7 pints of applesauce, plus a gallon size bag of apples that went in Mom’s freezer.  PLUS, I still have just under half of the apples left!  Guess I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow…

A little visitor

showed up in the yard the other day.  The camp guy obliged the two VERY curious boys and caught our lucky (unlucky?) visitor, so that they could get a good look at him.  He’s now back in the woodpile so he can keep hunting. Quite a fine specimen of a garter snake if you ask me – very handsome in his yellow stripes and checks. 

Autumn's Spell

The moon tonight is a somber, orange sliver of itself.

There's a wisp of a cloud in front of it,
making it look as if the man in the moon is speaking.

I imagine he's speaking to me -
some ancient wisdom of fall, of leaves and harvest
and crisp, cool weather.

His voice soothes and enchants me. 

It mingles with the music of the coyotes, singing in the distance.

Once again,
 I am under Autumn's spell.