Pressing, Canning & Drinking Apple Cider

    Here we are! 

    Before now, we have always pressed our own cider in our little press at home, but after doing some calculations we realized that my taking our apples to the press in the next town over, we actually save money because we get more juice out of our apples. Hence: Here We Are!

    We buy our apples from a local orchard by the bin because our own trees aren't baring enough to press. We used a mixture of golden-delicious and red-delicious and the cider it produced was yum-delicious :)

Before heading out to the press, I made apple muffins for us to munch on. 

They kept our hands warm too, which was nice because the apples were wet with cold dew.

I can't think of a place i would rather be than in a truck bed with hundreds of apples and my family.

    Once we get the cider home, it's a journey to get it all in jars. We've collected a lot of half gallon jars over the years and I think we now have over one hundred of them -- and we need it because we drink that much juice in a year.

    First we strain the cider and then warm it on the stove before pouring it into jars.

 See? What did I tell you? Over 100 half gallon jars!

    We can't leave the cider sitting in drums for very long because it starts to ferment really fast. So the canning often goes late into the night. It's a fun couple hours where it's just Mom and me in the kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed.

    The last step is dating all of the jars and carrying the boxes to the basement. I think carrying down the stairs is the hardest part of the whole process. Maybe it's because we're pretty tired by then. 

    In any case! Good-bye to one of my favorite events of the year.

Trip to Kirtland with Our Cousins

    One of the fun things we like to do when company comes is take them to the Historical Sites in Kirtland. The Kirtland temple is there as well as the Newel K. Whitney store, ashery, saw mill, and the home that Joseph and Emma Smith stayed in.

We all enjoyed being together!

It's fascinating to see how people used to live so long ago.

Many things have changed and yet, other things are still very much the same.

The one thing with historical sites is that there is always a lot of walking. 

We all helped the little ones with the last stretch.

   Our last stop was the Kirtland temple, which is owned by the Community of Christ church now. It was closed so we couldn't actually go inside, but the grounds were beautiful. There are so many flowers in bloom right now. 

    We all took turns taking pictures.

    There is nothing quite like the temple. I love going inside them. Even driving by one gives me a special feeling. They are all so beautiful and the feeling of peace that I feel when I'm there is incomparable. I love the temple!

    Families are Forever!

Trip to Local Farm with Cousins

    Our cousins are here from Texas!

    We love company around -- partly because we like to go fun places together. Today we went to a local farm that gives tours, lets us touch and feel the animals, and has lots of fun things to see and do. The kids really enjoyed themselves. Above you'll see that my brother found himself a woolly-worm -- he was almost more interested in the caterpillar than the barnyard animals.

There were lots of cats around. 

Most of them were friendly and let us hold them.

The kids enjoyed playing with the chickens. The hens would eat the grass out of their hands. 

We hope to get chickens one day.

The pond was a hit!

What is more fun than throwing rocks off a bridge -- tell me that!

This picture of my little man is adorable. I had to include it.

    No, the kids didn't trip and fall on their faces, even though that's what it looks like. There was a nice hill and they decided to roll down it. I remember doing that. Now I'm boring and take pictures of other people doing it. 

    When did i decide that being a grown up would be more fun?

   We had a look at their bird aviary, the museum and their gift shop before heading home. It was an enjoyable day spent with family in nature. 

    We love our family!

Spaghetti Sauce: Messiest Canning Day of the Year

    It's tomato season -- and that means spaghetti sauce. 

    Ont the day we can spaghetti sauce we forget about all other work and just focus on the canning. It's a tough, tough job -- but only because it's messy, hot and sticky.

    First we boil tomatoes, peppers and onions until they're soft. Then we put them through a strainer to get rid of as much juice as possible. We can the juice itself and in the winter we open,heat and drink it like V8 juice.
    Dad really likes it with pepper.

We try to keep the mess in the greenhouse as much as possible.

    The last thing we do before the sauce is caned is put it through a Victoria strainer to get rid of the seeds, peelings and anything else we don't want in the sauce. We set up the strainer in the greenhouse and just strain away.

   It spits and spurts and gets all over us -- like I said: Messy!

    Mom takes care of the last step.
    All it takes is a hot water bath to can up both the V8 juice and the sauce -- but you can use a pressure cooker too if you're more comfortable with that. It's a nice feeling when everything is all clean after spaghetti sauce and we've each had a nice long shower.

Getting the Porch Ready for Sealer

Here is yet another project. The porch hasn't been sealed yet. We knew we had to do that soon before it got too mud-stained. So my sister spent most of her afternoon clearing off and scrubbing down and pressure washing the porch.  It's a big porch and she did it all on her own.

I guess the scrub that she used was a little potent so she had to wear safety goggles as she worked. They made her look like a mad scientist. 

I love getting task after task done, and it's fun to do it with a team. Everyone takes a side and we lift together. I love being a part of a family that knows how to work hard AND have fun at the same time.

CAN LIFE GET ANY BETTER?

Our New Compost Bins

    For as long as I can remember, we've saved and recycled our compost. We've tried a lot of different methods, from burying it to using a hand-cranked composter. Finally, now that we live on a farm and can do things right, we built ourselves a set of compost bins out of cinder block, gravel and re-bar.

    There are four bins. One for black dirt (that's what my brother is sitting on), compost, and sand (that's what my sister is sitting on). The black dirt is essentially manure that is so old that it has turned into dirt -- the best nutrient rich dirt ever. The sand is just something we buy and add to our garden soil because the ground around here is mostly clay.

Today the children when out to shuck the corn right into the compost bins.

That sure was handy.

Oh, and corn silk makes for a good nutritious snack -- if you didn't know.

    It feels good to start cultivating the farm. Little by little we are building sheds, grading the yards, making flowerbeds, deciding where the lawns will be, and planting trees. It will be a long time before everything is finished -- in fact I don't think it ever will be. But that means we get to dream and make those dreams come true for a very long time.

Shucking Corn in the Shade

    It is corn-shucking season. What a fun time of year. We drag a tarp into the shade, pull the sacks of corn and a couple of camp chairs to the tarp and get to work. 

    All of the husks are thrown onto the tarp which makes for a really easy clean up. All of the cobs are placed in the tub of water and scrubbed before being taken to the to be cut and frozen. It's a big job, but with a family team like mine no job is too big.

Our new dog, Lady, is still learning the household rules, one of which is to not 

to pull the corn out of the tub of water.

We let her play with the husks instead.

    Everyone helps on corn-day, even the youngest of us. It is a great feeling to hang in there together through the heat and the tired hands and the bruises. There's nothing like being a member of a hardworking team.
    What a blessing families are!