A week or two ago, I noticed a tree full of apples at my church, so this morning, I wrote to my pastor to ask if I could pick some and he said I could. I was coming from my job at the Noble House, so I was in costume.
At the Vintage Market last week, I was given a bushel basket and I took that in the truck with me. I was racing the bees for the apples. Most of the apples had blemishes or bruises on them and the bees seemed to be attracted to the bruised parts of the apples. I have always been a little phobic about bees, but today they didn’t seem to bother me.
I tried picking the apples while standing on the ground, but the reddest apples were up out of my reach, and I wasn’t going to shinny up the tree in a long skirt! I got to looking at the pickup truck and looking at where the branches were on the tree and realized I could back the truck up and pick apples from there. I couldn’t get the tailgate open, so I had to climb over it to get into the trunk. It wasn’t a very lady-like maneuver! I had put the basket in the bed of the truck which was a very good idea if I do say so myself. I was able to fill it to the brim with apples and not have to pick it up. When Mark got home, I asked him to bring the basket in.
I tried to soak the apples in both sides of my kitchen sink, but they wouldn’t all fit. Mark and I peeled and cut the apples and, yes, some of them were bad inside, but for the most part, I was able to fill a large kettle and cook applesauce. I think that what I cooked was maybe less than a third of all the apples, so I’ll be cooking more applesauce tomorrow and maybe the next day too!
I am grateful for all of God’s bounteous gifts! We will have applesauce for quite some time. I am blessed!