August 22, 2018

Yesterday I made applesauce from the apples that have been falling from our trees. Sixteen pounds of apples, and we're not even harvesting yet. We've just been picking up what's fallen and looks intact. The applesauce is good, a little tart because some of the apples are pretty green and I don't use sweetener.

And these are just a few days of windfall apples! 16 pounds.

The ones on the trees (we have two in the backyard) are getting close to ripe but aren't quite there yet. George, who grew up with a small apple orchard on his parents' Virginia property, says the seeds should be dark brown and then you know they're ripe. Most of the seeds I saw yesterday were brown, so I guess we're getting there?

Chopping and coring with a knife, because we also got rid of the apple corer and all apple paraphernalia, turns out. I prefer using a chef's knife anyway. Apples go in the saucepan, cores and bad spots go in the bowl for the compost.

When we moved two years ago, we first went to an apartment, not knowing where we'd end up. So we got rid of tons of stuff, including all my canning and preserving supplies. It felt great to declutter, and I am not too upset that I'm now rebuying some of that stuff and we're only two miles from the last house. Oh well. On Sunday we went to Mills Fleet Farm and bought a new canner, some quart and pint-sized canning jars, plus a jar lifter and magnetic lid lifter.

Turns out we bought the wrong canner (I went for the cheaper, more classic granite-ware enamel one) because we have a glass top stove and for that we need a stainless steel canner with a flat bottom. I'll go back and buy the stainless steel one soon. There are many, many more apples to make into sauce and, my favorite, apple butter. Yesterday's batch made about five quarts, a decent amount but, as I said, those are just the last few days of windfall apples.

The trees are still bursting with more.