Apple Saucin'

 Today we woke to a chill in the air. I can smell Autumn coming, and I'm so excited! It's one of my favorite seasons for many reasons. I love pumpkin spiced everything, warm sweaters, apple sauce, hot chocolate nights, and the beautiful colored trees. 

 It's been a rather productive week at the Acreage! In between picking a gazillion apples, juicing, canning jams and jellies, podding peas and picking berries, I managed to whip up a few "farm house" dish cloths. 

 The bright colors make me happy, and crocheting them reminded me of my Gramma. It won't be long before I'll be making these to replenish my own stash instead of selling.

We spent the afternoon in a kitchen scented with apple sauce and fresh rain.Each of the littles got a special job to do and it made it go so much quicker than the night before.

A thunderstorm blew in early in the afternoon and we welcomed the fresh, cool air as we worked in the hot kitchen.

 Ollie crawled around at our feet eating apples and playing with kitchen utensils to his hearts content.

Each of the kids took a turn with the squeezo and soon found a job they liked best. Fin's favorite thing to do was scoop the steamed apples into the squeezo. I imagined how tired his arm was after lifting it above his head a hundred times, but he was determined to keep going until the end.

Everytime we filled a pan with sauce the boys would switch jobs. 

I loved watching the big boys scoop and turn by themselves. When Hyrum was finished he flexed his muscles and checked out how big they were. It was hard work!

We opened the front and back doors and let the breeze run through the house. The smell of fresh rain, on the brink of Autumn, coupled with the cooked apples was heavenly!

Reese did a lot of sleeping, right at Grampa's feet...

We steamed and sauced 6 boxes of apples today and calculated that we had done about 250lbs total! It was neat for the kids to pick the apples, steam them and see them turned into fresh apple sauce. I mixed some with cinnamon and sugar and they devoured it (though Camilla likes hers plane jane).

Once it cooled we put it into bags 4 cups at a time. We ended up with around 65 bags of apple sauce in the freezer! The sense of accomplishment was felt all around! It was so great to be offered apples to pick from neighbors and then turn it into something wonderful to use later. It's going to taste especially yummy in the Winter months. I drove home with a flutter of joy in my chest and a smile on my face. It will probably be the last huge chunk of time we spend at the Acreage for a while with school starting, so going home was kind of bitter sweet. Thanks for the fun Mom & Dad!