canning with mom

 

After a fall full of sunny days and warm breezes, Sunday brought a rainy gray day. . . a perfect day for canning.  As a child each fall we would go apple picking at a local orchard, we would bring friends and my parents would set us loose amongst the crooked apple trees to gather up as many as we could possibly hold...and more.  There was no limit that I can recall, which led to an abundance of apples, some that were eaten, some turned into apple grunt, pies, and crisps, some stored in newspaper lined bins for the winter, and the rest...mom would make into applesauce and freeze for the winter.  So on any given night we could warm some up on the stove add a little extra cinnamon and sugar and have it as an evening snack.   It has been a long time since I had that applesauce.  

It didn't take much convincing to get mom to come over to help make the applesauce that I remembered and can it for the winter.  She showed up, spices in hand, ready to boil, strain, and process the apples.  Of course, as usual, we had many apples and what went from a couple hour project, finally wrapped up at 7:30 in the evening for me making apple butter with the last batch of apples.  The cottage windows steamed up, the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg wafted through the small kitchen, Lulu came over, we looked at old pictures of The Barnacle and Uncle Phil (who was the original owner of the cottage), had hot apple cider, laughed, laughed more, and just enjoyed the afternoon.  

Thanks mom (and Lulu) for another great memory!