An apple a day...

We heard that the U of I was allowing people to come and pick their apples for free last week. I guess because of the early frost the apples were not going to last much longer and they would rather people be able to use them instead of just letting them rot on the trees. We decided to take full advantage of this situation. We hopped in the truck and herded our "cats" out to the orchard. We picked about 4 boxes full. Some were Rome and some were Golden Delicious.

Drew--ever the inventor-- made this "apple hammer" and had more fun chucking apples across the orchard. You'd be surprised how far those suckers could go.I decided to take advantage of the fun scenery and indulge in a little photo op.

I love love love it when I can catch my big manly man acting fun and silly with his little girls. There is something Oh-so-sweet about a father/daughter relationship. It literally makes my heart ache to watch them have fun together.

Notice A's gap in her teeth. It is now even bigger b/c she lost the other front one yesterday. I have to admit--it's so cute.

I've canned about 14 jars of applesauce and some pie filling. I should probably do more pie filling but I ran our of jars and frankly, I'm a little tired of canning. It seems that every time I can--I screw something up. When I did my peaches earlier this year I scalded my dining room table, broke two bottles and I put marks on my almost-new stove this last applesauce go-around. Not to mention forgetting to screw the lid on one of the bottles-hence losing that jar. Then I forgot about the pie filling in the canner and it cooked way too long and some of them didn't seal properly. -----------I am not Molly Mormon! Maybe I should just go to Winco!