Apples and squash
Yesterday was prep day. I cooked up some squash for squash buns, which I will start baking later this week. I got 7 1/2 cups of puree out of the two squashes. That's 7 1/2 dozen squash buns! And I still have another butternut squash to cook up. That is possibly another 3 cups of pureed squash. And if Jen and Mike come this year for Thanksgiving, I might have to up the total number of rolls that I bake. I think I need to buy another squash! Oh no! I'm behind! (not really. I'm just fretting in advance. I do not procrastinate when it comes to worrying--I am so ahead of the game when it comes to figuring out what could possibly go wrong and then obsessing about it)
Paul and I did some pruning of the apple trees in the back yard. They were overgrown (in my view, Mike might not agree) and the boys were complaining that it was hard to mow around them for all the drooping branches. And the one tree leans so far over that it needed me to relieve some of the weight. I had Paul lop off a giant branch and I pruned some of the longer branches--some which were longer than the tree is tall.
There were still viable apples on the trees so I picked and picked. When the apples first ripened, I was intimidated by the sheer number of apples that were available so I put off harvesting them. There are fewer now, mostly because various entities have eaten them (ladybugs mostly this year, and Hayley, Matt, and the neighbor kids. Very few wasps this year, yay). But I think I might have gotten in excess of 50 lbs. of apples. Not many are grocery-store perfect, but most have just little imperfections that can be cut out.
I've processed some of the apples--I've made 19 cups of apple pie filling which is now in the freezer. Tomorrow I'll make freezer apple sauce (if I have any plastic containers left). I don't want to can because I just cannot spare that kind of time. If I know my boys (and I think I do), the freezer applesauce won't last long.
Sorry, no pictures. Possibly pictures tomorrow of my newly pruned apple tree and of Paul playing the piano, which he hasn't done for 2 years.
Paul and I did some pruning of the apple trees in the back yard. They were overgrown (in my view, Mike might not agree) and the boys were complaining that it was hard to mow around them for all the drooping branches. And the one tree leans so far over that it needed me to relieve some of the weight. I had Paul lop off a giant branch and I pruned some of the longer branches--some which were longer than the tree is tall.
There were still viable apples on the trees so I picked and picked. When the apples first ripened, I was intimidated by the sheer number of apples that were available so I put off harvesting them. There are fewer now, mostly because various entities have eaten them (ladybugs mostly this year, and Hayley, Matt, and the neighbor kids. Very few wasps this year, yay). But I think I might have gotten in excess of 50 lbs. of apples. Not many are grocery-store perfect, but most have just little imperfections that can be cut out.
I've processed some of the apples--I've made 19 cups of apple pie filling which is now in the freezer. Tomorrow I'll make freezer apple sauce (if I have any plastic containers left). I don't want to can because I just cannot spare that kind of time. If I know my boys (and I think I do), the freezer applesauce won't last long.
Sorry, no pictures. Possibly pictures tomorrow of my newly pruned apple tree and of Paul playing the piano, which he hasn't done for 2 years.
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