Apples and Pumpkins

For the first time our backyard apple tree not only has tons of apples, it has tons of pretty ones (relatively). Last weekend I picked two giant bowls full and canned applesauce.

It really isn’t that much work but I timed it poorly so I was trying to cook dinner and keep track of my canning which involves lots of things boiling at the same time. It all worked out and now I can have a stash of applesauce.

I thought it would be funny to label it all 2005 so when we pull it out in February we can gasp and wonder how it had gotten lost in the cupboard for so long. The canning specialists tell you to eat it within a year but I’m here to tell you I’ve let stuff go way longer than that and no one died.

I have a recipe for slow cooker apple butter and I was thinking of doing a quick batch of that since I have tons of canning jars. But I already have 10 other projects going this weekend and canning would probably push me over the edge.

Check out these pumpkins Kent gave me. His are the two big pretty ones. The sad little one is mine. Babe the pig is there for perspective.

I gave him some seeds a few years ago and now he likes to grow them, too. He brought them to work and I walked over to pick them up. I put one in a backpack and carried the other one. Everybody smiles and says hi and makes chitchat with you when you’re carrying a pumpkin.

Some guy asked me for directions to a place that was completely in the opposite direction. I pointed in the direction he needed to be going and told him it was a hike. He shook his head and said I must have misunderstood and then very carefully enunciated the name of the place he was looking for. “Yup, it’s still the other way,” I said. He said he must have just overshot it and would backtrack. He’d overshot by about 12 blocks.