Why I haven't been blogging Lately

There have been a few things that have been swamping me lately and thus there has been no blogging going on. One of them was apples! A sister from up at the temple offered Steve some apples. She told him it was the off year but there might be one or two bushels out there that we could have. We were excited, we love apples and all my pie filling was gone so I needed to can some more. She called me the morning we were going to go pick and told me she had just been out there and there were more like 10 instead of 2 bushels. I was even more excited! I knew several people who could use some. That night Natalie and Kate came with our family to pick apples. We had a great time. The kids loved climbing on the ladders, unfortunately so did Railey--why do they love things like that at such an early age? The loved eating the apples straight after rubbing them on your pants and the apples were so crisp and sweet. It was a great FHE. But we came home with over 11 bushels. Now the work was about to begin!

Railey loved climbing the ladder

Damen up in the tree

Steve tolerating a picture

Too cute to not take another picture

Doesn't Seth look like Satan trying to tempt you with the fruit, "But it is delicious to the taste, and very desirable."

Kenna picked leaves while we picked apples

Thought this was cute of Kate and Railey

Thought this one was hilarious of Railey

Our 11 bushels, those buckets are 15 gallon buckets

The kids were having races coring and peeling apples. You should have seen the mess they made. Yes I cleaned up a little before I took the picture. Sorry can't have a completely messy kitchen documented. They cranked out 30 quarts of apples in about 1 1/2 hrs or less. At least there was one fun thing they did on fall break!

Some of the fruits of our labors. I did or helped others do about 70 quarts of pie filling, and 85 quarts of applesauce plus gave more away and let them do it themselves.

Yes it tastes as good as it looks

On top of all this I have done tomato soup, about 50 quarts but only half have stayed good the others have exploded. I think our tomatoes aren't as acidic as normal especially the yellow ones we planted this year. I'm done trying on the tomatoes, I've officially given up this year even though there are bushels out there that have now frozen!