Unusual

Oct. 8
I'm enjoying the unusual quiet in the house, although it promises to be very brief.  My uncle has taken Grandma to a doctor's appt. (not that Grandma's all that loud),  and all the children are outside except for Kay, who is making lunch.  They are taking advantage of a few free minutes.  Ri was finishing up mowing the hill (we don't let Bree mow that yet) and decided to give T.Lynn a ride on the mower.  She'll probably take Beenie for a ride too.
We have been working on our second batch of apples.  3 bushels this time.  We have all the plain and cinnamon applesauce made and I'll start the apple pie filling after I get the children settled for a science documentary after lunch.  I've found one that has a creation basis instead of an evolutionary one.  We also picked up pumpkins this weekend so we'll be making them into puree to put in the freezer.  Thankfully pumpkins keep well, so this is not a pressing issue.  I can work on them as I find the time. 
See - I can't escape.  Even when the house is quiet I'm thinking about work, or kids.  I just can't help it.  But, I've really liked all the canning this year.  I even experimented a bit with a batch of applesauce that ended up too runny.  I turned it into apple syrup.  I found a recipe online that started with making an apple puree, instead of using apple juice (and it didn't call for corn syrup either - yey!) and I tweaked it, a lot.  Especially since the original recipe called for "1 lb tart green apple", and I had puree that had been cooked down from about 18-20lbs of slightly tart apples.  It was kind of a shot in the dark, but it turned out really delicious.  I have 16 pts. up in the cabinet now.  I just had to make pancakes this morning to see how it came through the canning process - it's still, as T. would say, nummy.  I've already envisioned homemade apple pie with homemade vanilla icecream, drizzed with the apple syrup.  Oh my!  Focus, I need to focus - I have to finish those apples today.  But there's always tomorrow.

Becky