Apples!

Our apple tree had the most prosperous season yet this year. I'm hoping the apple tree has matured, and this is what we can expect from now on, and not that summers like this past are needed to make fruit this nice.
This is the first time the apples have been nice enough to actually eat fresh. All the past seasons' apples have been made into apple butter. This was because the apples were so hard and tasteless that was the only thing I could think of making so as not to waste the apples. Finally this year they're actually slightly juicy and have some flavor. Yay!


They're also a lot bigger than they've ever been before.


So pretty!


Unfortunately, this is also the first year that we've had any bug trouble at all, or any pest problems. Something began eating away at them before they were ripe, and continued until we picked them. We don't know what it was, as we never saw anything in the tree. We also had the flies cause problems this year, so next year I'll have to get my uncles secret weapon. If you need a secret weapon to keep the flies from wreaking havoc with your apples, go to my June blog posts and find the untitled post that begins, "My uncle collects farmall tractors..." I would just put the link here, but it won't work for me today. Grrr...

Uff Da!

I have been so busy lately! I think it's a safe bet that I'll be posting less now that school has started. We started last Monday (Monday the 30th of August. I didn't get this published after I wrote it. Like I said, I'm having trouble getting any blogging done.), and it's been going well. We have a kindergartner, second grader, fifth grader and seventh grader. They're all becoming such wonderful little students. I'm so pleased with how well the first week (Two weeks now!) has gone, even though it was so full of activity. Here are our new first day of school pictures. I try to do this on the first day of school every year.








One of my husband's brothers and two of his friends spent last week in our neck of the woods. They planned to hike on the Superior Hiking Trail a full week. They arrived on a Saturday and we fed them a good supper. They got up and had an early breakfast before Dan drove them to the trail head on Sunday. They started near Trail Center on the Gunflint Trail, hiking the border rout trail to McFarland Lake by Wednesday A.M. At that point one of the men decided that this was all just a bit too much for him. They caught a ride to their car, which Dan had parked at a trail head on the Arrowhead Trail, and back to our house they came. So, I fed them lunch and let them shower up and wash clothes before they started out again on Thursday A.M., minus one. He stayed behind with our family. This time they started at a Superior Hiking Trail trail head on the Camp 20 Rd. They made it to the Pincushion Mt. parking area by Friday afternoon. I don't know about you, but I'd call that some hiking! I picked them up there and brought them home for another shower and supper, and we saw them off with full stomachs on Saturday after lunch. It was really fun to play hostess to all of them for the week. I think they all had a good time, and I know that our family did! On Saturday A.M. 2 of the men helped the kids with their wood splitting chores, and one of them helped Dan and I get a good start on our goat pen. Here's a quick photo of the new fence. It's almost done! :)
Okey dokey, no picture. I'll have to show you later bc blogger is being a pain in the tail right now.

Horse Games

Last weekend Molly participated in the horse games at the county fair. I didn't do a great job of taking pictures of her, but I got a few. We had a lot of fun, she riding, me watching and volunteering a bit where needed. She's getting to be a good little rider!


Here she's participating in the egg and spoon game, where the participants try to follow instructions given them while ballancing an egg on a spoon. She placed third in that event. Klu was acting up a bit, and kicked at a horse who's rider came too close for his liking. Molly got big applause for keeping the egg on the spoon through his little tirade! :)


More egg and spoon.


Miss M with her ribbons! This was her second year in the games, and she did really well. First in one event, second in two and third in two. I don't care if she places in any of the events, but seeing her blossom as a young woman and a rider is so much fun!

Canning Pickles

Hey everyone! I'm back after quite a busy spell. I've got a lot to share from the weekend, the garden and canning pickles. Thanks to Mama Pea at A Home Grown Journal (thanks a TON, Mama Pea!), who gave me a ton of pickling cukes, I had a bunch of produce for some big batches to can! It was so much fun! It took most of the day to can three batches of pickles, so when Dan came home for supper at 6:00 I didn't have anything ready. He asked what was for supper and I said, "Ummm...pickles?" :)
My canner holds 7 quart jars, so I made 14 quarts of dill pickles. After that I was out of dill, so I made 5 pints of bread and butter pickles with the cukes that were left.
The dills are supposed to sit for 8 weeks before opening. I had one jar that didn't seal though, so what do you think we did? OPENED IT, OF COURSE! :) And they were good already. If 8 weeks improves them, I'd say the recipe is a hit!


Here's the giant pile of cukes I got from Mama Pea.


Cukes taking an ice water bath before canning. Soaking them in ice water for 2 to 8 hours is supposed to make them really nice and crunchy.


Here's the dill, habanero peppers (I put them in 4 of the jars to add some heat, for those who like it hot) and garlic.


Cukes packed and ready for processing.


Lots of pickles!