Apple Butter

I started first with fresh picked apples. I sliced them, and put them into the microwave for about 10 min. or until tender.

Next, I put the apples through my Roma sauce maker. A food mill will work too. Then I put the applesauce into a pan and put them in the oven. Sorry I forgot to get a picture of this step. You can put them on the stove to cook or cook them overnight in a crockpot. I use the oven method, but am thinking of trying the crockpot. Here is my recipe that I use. I got it from the Mennonite cookbook.

Apple Butter

1 gal. applesauce, 6 3/4 cup brown sugar (this can be adjusted to taste), 1 cup apple cider or vinegar, 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. allspice, 1/4 tsp. ground cloves. Mix ingredients together. If using oven, put into an oven safe pot, bake at 350 degrees for 3 hrs. stirring frequently. I stir mine about every 30 min. If using top of stove, cook on low for 1 1/2 hrs. stirring much more frequently as the stove top method is more likely to stick to the kettle. If using the crockpot method, put in the crockpot and cook overnight. Stirring only occasionally.

The result. Beautiful applebutter. I like this recipe much better than any other I have tried. I have used a recipe that called for cinnamon red hots. It makes the applebutter a red color. We prefer the dark brown color. This recipe is very friendly. You can purchase store bought applesauce, use the crockpot method and it requires very little effort to have delicious applebutter. You also can freeze this instead of canning it.

Temperature here this morning is rather chilly. Mid 40’s with clouds and rain. No fog yet. I guess I’ll be drying clothes inside today. Take care and God bless.

September 29, 2010 2

Young Farmer

I thought this was such a cute picture. This young man had just been out to the barn with our pastor. He spent some time sitting on the tractor and then they were on their way back to the house. They both look very content. Simple things in life seem to bring the most contentment.

Yesterday was rainy and foggy here. Very dense fog. Temperatures were still in the mid 50’s. The sun is shining this morning and it promises to be a nice day. Hopefully, we will get to hang our clothes on the line today to dry.

I better get busy. We are planning to make applebutter today after school. Take care and God bless.

September 28, 2010 1

A Lesson Learned

We learned a valuable lesson yesterday. First I’ll start on Friday evening. As you all know we met at the pastor’s house to begin peeling apples for our apple butter. We peeled 6 bushel. We decided to put them in salt water overnight so they would not turn brown.

On Saturday morning about 8:00, we built the fire and loaded some of the apples into the kettle. As the apples cooked down, we would add more to the kettle.

All day we took turns stirring the apples in the kettle. Fun but hard work. We had a wonderful day of fellowship with a great meal. However, we did not get any applebutter. Before we added the sugar, (Thank you, Lord) we decided to taste the applesauce. YUCK!!!!!It tasted terrible. We reviewed all we had done and came to the conclusion our mistake was soaking the apples in the salt water overnight. The salt reacted with the cooper kettle and the apples were very bitter and metallic tasting. We ended up throwing them away. No applebutter, however, we did all have a GREAT time. It was a lot of fun. I would do it all again even with the same results. We are talking about trying again maybe in Oct. We’ll see.

Today is a rainy day here in Floyd. No complaints though. We really need the rain. Kinda chilly. Mid 50’s. We are not having bible study tonight so I think today is a snuggle in and relax evening. I hope your Sunday will be just as enjoyable. God bless.

September 26, 2010 2

Morning

These pictures were taken just as the sun was coming up. Isn’t it a beautiful color? We certainly get some beautiful sunrises and sunsets here on the farm. Today is ladies bible study day. We will be beginning the study on Ruth by Kelly Minter. It promises already to be a great study. So many things she has pointed out just in the first week that I had never thought of. I love studies like that. They make me think and help me apply bible lessons to everyday life.

This evening we will be going to the Pastor’s house to start our applebutter making. I am looking forward to it. I have never made applebutter outside before. I think, though, it will be a lot of work. This evening we will be eating sloppy joes, chips and cookies. Tomorrow will be pot luck. We need to be at his house by 8:00 a.m. We will need to leave here by 6:45 to get there on time. I hopefully will get lots of pictures to share.

I better get busy. It’s almost time for the ladies to get here. Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 24, 2010 3

Family

My girls.

Baby Sam. I think I see a little mischievousness in his eyes, don’t you?

Little Daniel. What could be better than sitting in Dad’s lap, doing big boy stuff (watching the clay shoot) and drinking a coke.

I consider, after my salvation, my family to be my greatest gift from God.

Today has been a nice day here in Floyd. Rather warm for this time of year. Mid 80’s. Beautiful sunshine. One of those days that I just love. I have clothes on the line drying, school has went very well and my house is “relatively” clean. (okay, so we’re still working on the house part) Overall, just a wonderful day. Thank you, Jesus!

Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 23, 2010 2

New Babies

Our newest addition. Ain’t they cute! The girls are soooooo excited. They never thought of having kittens to play with this late in the year. They belong to “Stripes”. You all have seen pictures of her in previous posts. They seem to be very healthy and she is a wonderful mama.

Today we had to go to Roanoke to the dentist. Afterward we went to Sam’s club. Sam’s does this thing called click and pull. You can go on line, order your stuff and they will pull it for you. They will have it waiting at customer service. All you have to do is walk in, give them your name, pay for it and walk out the door. Pretty amazing, I think. This made our day so much easier. We even made it home it time to do some school.

Yesterday, for supper, we had chicken and dumplings with green beans. I used the remainder of the chicken and made southwest chicken soup for supper tonight. Easy stuff. We will be having mexican cornbread with this and honey baked apples for dessert.

We just finished having a tremendous hail storm here. Lots of rain and high winds. The temperature dropped about 14 degrees in just a few minutes. It had been very warm before the storm came through. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

September 22, 2010 3

Clay Shoot

I apologize for not getting to post in a while. Things have been very busy here. Hopefully, they will slow down soon. The weekend was so much fun. David, Jess, and the boys came up. We all went to the clay shoot on Saturday. We stayed for a while, then left David and George there. We stopped at a few yard sales on the way home. Later we had a campfire and just relaxed and enjoyed the evening.

This is David shooting. He did really good for a beginning and I think he really enjoyed himself.

One of the ladies shooting in the Women’s Competition.

And, of course, my hero!

God bless.

September 21, 2010 4

Birthday Pictures

Daniel’s birthday cake. He was very excited about his cake. He loves “Cars” and especially “TowMater”. (Hope I spelled that correct)

Daniel blowing out the big #3 candle. My, but they sure grow up fast.

Friends playing at the party. All in all I think he had a really fun day.

David, Jess and the boys are coming up tomorrow for a visit. Our church will be sponsoring a clay shoot tomorrow. David will be spending the day with Hubby at the shoot. Julie and Grace are going to be with them. Jess, myself and the boys will find something else to do-too much loud noise for little ears. Sunday they plan on going to church with us. This will be Sam’s first visit to our church. MawMaw can’t wait to show him off. After church we will be going to the Mennonite church for their annual hymm sing. It is always such a blessing to go there. Beautiful hymns!

Sunday night we will be starting our new bible study. We will be doing John MacArthur’s study on II Corinthians. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

September 17, 2010 3

We’re Back

This is our progress so far. It has been a pretty big job. We finished grouting the tile today. I think it looks really good. I really like the color she chose for the walls. I think I like the bigger tile too. David will seal the grout, put on the base trim and get her washer and dryer back in the room. She is wanting to put lots of shelves in and also they are going to purchase a freezer to go in the room. I’ll take more pictures when all this is done.

We had a really nice time Sunday with our revival getting started. The pastor’s messages were really good. Sunday mornings message was about being cleansed and Sunday evening was about getting a touch from God. We left Monday morning to go back down to Jessica’s. She’s such a slave driver, you know.

My next post will have birthday party pictures, however I could not resist showing you these two today.

Ain’t he cute when he’s sleeping? He has an absolutely beautiful smile and smiles a lot. He is a very happy and content little boy.

This is a picture of pure love. I don’t think I have ever seen a little boy love his dog more than Daniel loves his “Buddy” or vice versa. They spend hours outside doing this very thing, just rolling and playing together.

Well, I think I’ll rest for a while. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

September 15, 2010 3

Still No Pictures

Well, we came back home yesterday evening and I did remember to bring the camera. The problem is the camera card is in Jessica’s pocket book. So still no pictures. Anyway, we have got a lot done. All the walls and ceiling is finished. Dave and Jess are painting it this weekend while we are home. She decided to paint the room a light blue, the official name is icy blue. It sounds really pretty. We are staying here until Monday morning then going back down to work some more. We will be coming back home Tuesday evening as Hubby has some work coming up this week. He still has to lay the tile on the floor and do some more to the electrical. We will be starting our revival at church tomorrow. I am really looking forward to hearing the preacher who is bringing the message. I have never heard him before but others that have say he does a really good job. The youth from his church will be doing the music. We will be having a fellowship meal tomorrow following the service (of course), you know we gotta eat. I think I will take potato soup and salisbury steak with gravy. I’m not sure if I’ll have time to make a dessert or not but there usually is an abundance of desserts.

Temperatures here are cool-mid 50’s. It has been raining most of the day. It is also pretty foggy. I think it will be a nice sleeping night. I just made some blueberry muffins and they are ready to eat. I think I’ll see if they are good. Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 11, 2010 5