More fun with apples

Well, we had more fun with apples this past weekend. After harvesting our apple trees last weekend, we made those apples into applesauce using an apple mill -- something that we've never done before, but which turned out to be very easy. You just cut up a bunch of apples (we fill a good-sized stock pot), add a couple cups of water to keep them from burning, and cook them down for 20 - 40 minutes. (The smaller they are, the faster they cook.) I forgot to mention that you just throw them into the pot, skins, seeds, cores, stems and all. That's what makes this so easy. Then, after they've cooked down so that all the pieces are soft and mushy, you throw them into the food mill, which you place over a bowl or another pot, and you turn and turn and turn (or get your kids to do it), and the applesauce falls into your bowl, leaving the skins and other hard parts in the food mill. It took us about an hour and a half to make three quarts of really good applesauce. (We added cinnamon.) Even Starling thinks it's good!

Mudpuppy ate his first apple!

If you could see how hard he was working to bite into it,
you'd laugh. His sister ate a Golden Crisp.

The girls fought over who got to use the food mill first ... and
then after ten minutes said, "Dad, you can do the rest!"

And here the girls are playing in the hay pile
at the pick-your-own apple orchard.