Fall Canning

    As we are approaching General Conference weekend, I'm almost done processing our plentiful grape harvest.  So far I've made about two gallons of raisins with our little dehydrator and I'm up to 11 gallons of grape juice.  That is all from just eight grape vines. The grapes have taken a back seat for the past few days while I've been canning apple sauce. I bought 100 pounds of Jonagold apples to go along with the harvest from our own trees. I've done 20 quarts of  apple sauce thus far and I am not quite half done.  I know that is a lot of apple sauce and grape juice, but I look at it as canning for the entire family.  We try to distribute a fair amount of our home canned juice, pickles, and apple sauce among the family.   Besides, home canned apple sauce is so much better than anything they sell in the grocery store.  On the other hand, we can easily use several gallons of raisins in a year.  We probably have oatmeal with raisins three or four times in a week.

Freshly canned apple sauce is a beautiful sight

    I always look forward to General Conference.  I try to watch as many of the sessions as I can and listen to all of the talks several times. I love the sincerity of the brethren. They present such a stark contrast to your garden variety tele evangelist.  I will wait until the weekend to finish juicing the grapes just for the tradition of juicing the grapes between conference sessions.

     I ordered a load of dirt today so we can replace the big divit left from the above ground pool.  We're going to try to level our yard while we're at it.  Both the back yard and the side yard have a significant number of uneven areas which are difficult to mow. Three yards of dirt will be delivered to our driveway tomorrow morning.   I've already arranged for one of my young minions from work to do most of the shoveling.  It wasn't a hard choice. I could either pay him to hold down the fort at the Beez Neez while I did all of the shoveling, or I could run the store and send him to my house for some quality time with my shovel and wheel barrow.

     October is a good time of year to put in a lawn in Western Washington. Soon after we plant the grass seed, the fall rains will start, watering the grass more gently and regularly that I ever could. Grass grows very well in the cooler weather. Also once it starts raining we won't have to protect the new grass from visiting grandkids. No one wants to go outside to play in the rain.