Canning Apples

For a few weeks I have noticed that my neighbor's apples trees were full. In fact, one tree had dropped its apples and there were hundreds of them. They let them lay there and I thought about asking if I could have them, but how to beg? Then I saw them picking them up with their kids and grandkids and thought, oh well. Searching for chickens I noticed they had dumped all the apples into the field behind their fence and the bunch was just rotting away. There were still plenty left on the ground so I decided I needed to ask about them. Steve was over talking to them and they gave him a sack with 'good' apples and pears which he brought in to give me. Of course I scampered out ... they were still in their back yard...and thanked them for the bag and asked what they were going to do with the rest of the apples on the ground. They just hadn't got to them to throw them over the fence, so I asked if I could get them. YES!!!! So after dinner Mandy, Reed, Emmy, Abby and I went over and picked up the apples. There are still 1/4 left in the top of the one tree and a second tree loaded - these apples will be ready at the end of September. We got the ground apples and a promise of calling when the others are ready

so we can have them. WaaHu!!

Mandy and I spent the next day peeling, cutting, and cooking apples to can apple pie filling (or apple sauce). It took the whole day. Well, we did have to go buy jars first and since we were out go to the post office, the bank, and a garage sale we spotted.

We ended up with 21 quarts ready for food storage. Mmmmm pies.

Steve has his hydrogen booster hooked up and actually running. It needs a little tweeking, but its predicted to add 10 mpg to our current mpg. He put it on a Suburban, so we will be getting 25+ mpg in a Suburban. Now thats what I'm talking about.