Got Apples?

September brought a wonderful opportunity for our family to go to an apple orchard. We have a friend in the ward, who has an appple orchard with millions of apples! He said we could get as many as we could pick because they were falling from the trees and many of them were rotting. We took several friends and picked apples until it was dark. We filled up about half the truck bed with apples. They were all organic and simply delicious! As we were leaving, Carter said he wished we had an apple orchard because it was so much fun picking up the apples and climbing the trees. I was grateful to have the opportunity to pick the apples, but to own the orchard appeared to be quite an overwhelming task.


The weeks that followed included many long days in the kitchen, washing, coring, steaming, juicing, and bottling the apples. We made lots and lots of apple juice and applesauce. We also found a delicious recipe for apple butter and that was fun to make also. We hoped to make apple pie filling, but we simply got worn out. We do have some apple slices in the freezer that we can use for pies later. What a task!


Mason became my best helper during the many applesauce days. He quickly learned his task and would jump up when it was time for him to help. His tasks involved taking the apples from the bucket and putting them in the water to wash. Then he would wash off the apples and place them on the counter next to mommy's station where I would then quarter them and get them ready to steam.

After they were cooked, we would put them in the strainer where Mason would remove the skins that would get stuck and then he would empty the skins in the garbage container.

He did such a great job helping and was so thrilled that he got to help.

I was trying to get him to look at me for the picture and he deliberately kept looking away!

Here is one of the many cases of applesauce we did.
Here are some of the apple butter pints that we love!

I realized that the Jars names were "Mason" and "Kerr". Too bad the latter wasn't Kear instead of Kerr. Although I do believe the Kear name goes back somehow to Kerr. Interesting. :) We had fun working together on this project as a family. We all helped pick the apples and now we will all get to eat the applesauce together! :) I never realized how delicious warm homemade applesauce is! What a delicious treat! Oh, and not to mention the sweet taste of fresh apple juice. We may never be able to eat store bought again. I must admit though, I can wait until next year to go to the orchard again!