Yesterday we woke up to a gorgeous sunshiny day! It’s such a treat during our normally overcast, cloudy winter days. It’s amazing what some sunshine can do for your life and mood.

But in between taking care of moms and babies (thankfully it’s not too time-consuming at this stage) and letting adults in and out for breaks, hubby and I tackled the boxes and boxes of apples that have been waiting in the garage. The apples are picked in the fall, but we usually wait to do the canning until later when there is less going on.

It’s an all day, messy, tiring process. But the results are well worth the effort!

The kids and I used to tackle this job when they were growing up. And we would do everything in the kitchen which makes a sticky mess. Now hubby rigs up our applesauce maker on his workbench and we mostly cook on the camp stove out in the garage so the kitchen doesn’t get so heated up.

We only have two apple trees; a Red Delicious and a Fuji but they give plenty of apples for our family. The Reds were big and gorgeous this year. The Fuji’s were smaller and a bit rough looking but still tasted great.

First, I have to wash the canning jars, get the lids ready, and wash and quarter the apples. The apples are cooked in a bit of apple juice until they are soft enough to go through the applesauce maker. This hand-cranked machine sauces the apples and then spills the sauce into a catch container and spits the skins, stems and cores into another container. Then the sauce is scooped into the jars and readied for the canning process.

When it was all said and done we ended up with fifty-seven quarts of yummy homemade applesauce to eat and share with the kids.

I’m trying my hand at making apple scrap vinegar for the first time (similar to apple cider vinegar) with some of the scrapes. The rest will go to the chickens or the composter. And the last of the apples I’m planning on using to make and can apple pie filling.

The horses enjoyed some of the scraps too.

In a couple days I’ll tackle the job of washing all those jars (they get a bit sticky in the canning process), label them and put them away in the pantry. It’s nice to have that been chores done!