Jeff and I have been enjoying summer bliss, but we are beginning to feel a touch of fall in the air. So Jeff has been hauling, splitting, and stacking firewood and I’ve been putting apples away for the winter. That’s what we naturally do when we feel fall coming.
We trimmed a tree earlier this year that is providing us with lots of maple firewood and our friend from market gave us a bucket of apples from his tree. He said they weren’t any good, but thought our goats and chickens would enjoy them. When we saw the apples they looked great to us!
They’ve been filling the kitchen with the sweetest aroma- almost floral. It’s intoxicating. We’ve been eating some and the rest I cored, peeled and froze to make applesauce this winter. All the bad parts and the skins went to the chickens and goats, so they still got to enjoy plenty of yummy apple treats.
Quietly processing the apples was a meditation for me. We’ve been so busy lately and it was so nice to have a project where I just got to sit for a long time. I thought about how much I will appreciate this effort in the middle of winter. How nice it will be on a cold winter day to brew a warm pot of applesauce with freshly grated ginger and some cinnamon…. I could already smell it and feel the warmth in the room. During all my apple daydreaming, it occured to me that the chair I was sitting on was the old oak chair from the farmhouse my Grandfather and Great-Grandfather grew up in. There was a possibility that my Great-Grandma Jensen sat in that same exact chair doing just what I was doing.
That thought made me smile.
mckenzie- I’m planning on making all my frozen apples into applesauce this winter so I’m sure they’ll be fine for that.
Mmm..apple cake sounds yummy! 🙂
Oh well, I think it’ll be alright. guess we’ll both discover how frozen apples taste. Although, I have a feeling they’ll be perfect for apple cake (something I am newly in love with!)
Mckenzie- This is the first time I’ve ever frozen apples before so it’s an experiment. Normally, I would have canned applesauce, but I didn’t want to do a big canning project with a small amount of apples so I decided to freeze them. We’ll see how it goes. 🙂
Lara- I thought of you when I wrote this post and I thought you’d appreciate the part about the chair! 🙂
Jessica- I agree! Homemade applesauce is the best!! 🙂
I love making applesauce! Once you’ve had homemade, you never eat the jarred stuff from the grocery store again. 🙂
I love this post! It got me really excited for fall. Soon it will be fruit gleaning time and I will be swimming in apples! You’re doing your grandparents proud!
We have a huge apple tree in our front yard. I’ve already canned about 12 quarts worth of applesauce, but I love to freeze food too for fresh making during winter. The apples don’t get funky in the freezer? If not, I am definitely going to do what you did. Also I know exactly what you mean about your chair. 🙂