Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Apples. Apples. Everywhere.

Last weekend I took Kiwi to can apples with my mother, father, sister in law Lacy, and brother Paul. Lacy and Paul live in a small town with their son.

It's so funny to see the life of a small town. There's not a lot to do, but you don't have to worry about crime. They don't lock their doors and don't even own keys to their house. The people before them couldn't find the keys because they never locked the doors either. Being a city girl, that's weird to me. Petty crime is just a way of life in the city. You get used to it and expect it to happen at some point.

Back to the apples. We canned 168 pounds of apples. We made applesauce, apple pie filling, apple butter, dried apples and even canned plain unsweetened sliced apples. It was fun. My mother and I did it last year on our own without any help while I was trying to nurse a baby. That was hard work.





It was so nice to have the help of Lacy, my dad and brother (at least on Saturday because Friday they went golfing) and to have two of my three kids back home with dad. Chad was so wonderful to take a few days off so I didn't have to take all the kids. We discovered taking Kiwi out of the equation made for a more tranquil home. Also, Kiwi all on her own is a very pleasant girl. It seems that Kiwi plus either one of her brothers leads to conflict. I don't know if it's a girl thing or a middle child thing. I'm guessing the latter. I'm a middle child and I think I definitely liked to tick off my brothers just for the fun of it when we were younger.

I think we're going to make it an annual tradition. Next year we may try something different like peaches, vegetables (pressure canning, scary!), meat, and beans. I love to fill my pantry and I love to spend the time having some great conversation with my family.

1 comment:

TrishAnderson said...

Wow!!! 168 pounds of apples. That is a lot. I helped get about 2900 pounds of fresh UT fruit down here to Tucson, but I sure didn't have to can it all!!! Thank goodness. That is fun to do with family. I will miss canning with my sister now that she has moved away.