Apple Butter Making Days

We have a bumper crop of apples this year in spite of the weather. My dear husband has been picking the apples for me since I was working six days a week. He hasn't even scratched the surface of the apples as he just more or less stood in one spot and picked basket after basket. We, so far, have ten quart bags of apple slices for pies and such in the freezer, two quarts of applesauce frozen (I'll some later), a couple pounds dehydrated for snacking, and eighteen pints, and eight pint-and-a half jars of apple butter. I actually am thinking of making more! I am going to can some applesauce. It is really good for baking, not just eating (hot with butter and cinnamon) or cold. I also have four quarts of juice. We are eating them as fast as we can but I think we may get tired of them. Man, they are good though.

                                                  Really big apples from our trees this year.

   Two batches of apple butter simmering. It takes hours to cook it down to desired thickness. It must be stirred nearly constantly. Sure smells good!

Jars of yummy apple butter. Look out biscuits! Yes, those are Blue Ball Mason jars in the front. And the Dehydrator is running in the background. Apples are everywhere!

Canning, canning, and More Canning!

For such a bad start to the gardening year, I sure got a lot grown to can for the year. We had a hard frost the second week of September and when I was not at work, I had to finish canning the veggies. I don't know how the apples survived the frost, or the butternut squash, but I have to pick that next and put it in jars and the freezer. This is the first time in years I have had to buy more canning jars!

I tried to do a panoramic (sort of) shot, but I don't have that function on my camera, so some of it got shot twice. I also have zucchini and green tomato relish that gone done after the pictures were taken. I'm  not sure where to put them, or the apples and butternut squash, since, as you can see, the shelf is quite full now. At least they have a cool basement to be placed in. We butchered a cow and all my venison from last season had to be canned, so they are in the first picture. then bread and butter pickles. The second one is dill pickles, yellow squash, corn and some sweet potatoes. The third is corn again, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, and strawberry-rhubarb jam. The zucchini will probably be put before the jam (I'll have to move the jam). I do have a small shelving unit next to those shelves which is used for storing stuff that can totally be tossed, so I'll probably toss them, and use it to put the rest of the goodies on. No, if can just find a nice BIG bag of white potatoes (mine didn't do so well!) I can can those too, just so I have them. Busy, busy, busy.

It's time for the corn to be harvested and the soybeans will be close on too, if, as suspected, the heavy frost didn't ruin them. I've seen a lot of fields that are black because of the frost the beans are a total loss. Ours hadn't had a chance to make beans yet, so we aren't sure how they came out. Only time will tell, but they probably won't do much. Who needs a casino? I'm a farmer. We gamble every time we put a plow in the ground and plant something.