We did a new thing this year: we adopted some apple trees from a community apple orchard. We paid a small fee (about 20 apples' worth, if you're buying them at the store), did some pruning, and stepped back to let rain and shine do their thing.
In early Fall, we got the call that our apples were ready.
These are organic apples — not the waxed-up, pesticide-soaked supermodels that you'd find at the grocery store. Your first reaction might be that they weren't any good... but oh, they were, they were.
Deborah asked for a basket for her birthday, spcifically for harvesting things.
The kids enthusiastically picked the low-hanging fruit...
...while Risanna munched.
Pretty soon, the allure of a climbable tree plus the lack of low-hanging fruit led to the logical solution.
I lost count at 360 apples. The Zipper proved very handy, as not only could we move things around, but it could drive on the grass, and provided a handy place to climb on to get upper branches.
The apples needed to be cleaned up, but looked great with a little washing...
Beautiful apples.
They did need to be cut up to get the worm holes out. For all the apples we had, this took days.
After several hours of cooking and a trip trough a food mill, we ended up with more than 20 quarts of really good applesauce.
1 comment:
Very cool story. It's neat to see you guys having fun together.
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