Week in Review 10/3/10

Remember those 400 lbs. of apples I told you we picked?  Well this past week was spent trying to use them up.  The easiest part was the picking of the apples.  So beware, if good fortune should come your way and someone offers you all the apples you want for free, remember… the easiest part of apples is the picking!

If you haven’t realized it yet, we do believe in child labor encourage all our children to help.

More apples. After juicing 9 1/2 gallons and coring 45lbs of apples, Zachary’s starting to get sick of seeing them.  Serenity’s not looking too thrilled either.

But then… in the middle of all this apple business, I had to buy 40lbs. of tomatoes. I was feeling really good about canning…. that day.

More child labor, oops, I mean help from my children.

So what all did we accomplish last week?

7 quarts of salsa – do you know how long it takes to make 7 quarts?!

16 quarts of apples sauce.

4 quarts of spiced apple rings.

And 7 quarts of spaghetti sauce.

I looked at the quarts setting on my counter and thought of all the hours we had put into canning this piddly amount and I said to my husband, “Remind me, why do people can?”  It does make one feel homey but after 10 hours in the kitchen, that feeling wears off fast!

My oldest boy, Seth turned 20 this week.  Poor son.  It wasn’t much of a celebration, between canning and getting ready for hunting camp.  I am stilling revelling in the fact that he’s home.  He told me the other day that he’s got the itch to travel, so I’ll enjoy him while he’s here!  I can’t blame him for wanting to travel since I’m the same way.

I’ll be gone for a few days. Can you guess what we might be doing?

This year there’s a whopping 85 of us that are heading for the woods. It’s our annual elk hunt camping trip. You can read about our 2009 Elk Hunting Trip here.   Dirt, camp cooking, dutch oven cooking, a tea party, elk victory calls (we hope) and visiting with friends are things I’m looking forward to. 

Have a wonderful weekend.  See you next week!