Drying apples and gift bags

It has been a while since writing here. I have been posting everything over on Facebook.  It was quick and easy but I was constantly online. So, here I am again.

I have an abundance of apples. Since I can't eat them quick enough, I have decide to dry them. This brings a memory of a couple of years ago when my sister was visiting and we were drying apples. Her grandchildren loved them so much they ate them all within a couple of days.
We do use them for snacks but we also use them throughout the winter for baking or adding to hot cereals.

I use an attachment on my mixer to peel the apples. They were all peeled in 10 minutes. Long gone are the days of lining up my sons to wash, peel and core apples by hand. Boy, did they hate apple season, especially when people would leave bags of them on the porch.

Don't they peel lovely?

 I soak them in lemon water so they won't brown as I continue to cut apples. 

They chickens loved the scraps. 

They are ready to go on the trays. 

I powdered them with cinnamon. 

Five trays ready to go in the dehydrator. 

They turned out so good. 

The rest of the day was cleaning, taking care of house plants, making dinner and making gift bags for Thanksgiving. These were from a kit from Paper Pumpkin and they give you so many extra supplies that Sunday I plan on making more gift boxes on the Cricut and use the extra supplies from here. It made 6 bags and we have 12 people coming for Thanksgiving.  I will probably fill them with nuts and dried apples.

 Peace 

Recycling feedbags, mugs, and what to do with apples.

A rainy muggy Sunday

We try to recycle whatever we can on the homestead.  To do what we can in our own tiny section of the world is important to us. A point was made today...you go to the grocery store and get your goods in a plastic bag to bring home to use only once for that purpose.  We need to carry our store bought goods in another way.  We will recycle the plastic bags.  Today I recycled feedbags for groceries, carrying stuff to work and family .  Dude saves them for me after feeding the animals. We have lots of them and we need to reduce our carbon footprint. Today, I , again, began to sew them up. If we have Thanksgiving here this year, (we have enough turkeys growing) these bags can be used to carry home leftovers. 

I used another bag to plant potatoes. 

I put cuts in the bottom for drainage. 

Made some cuts down the sides a bit. 

Put dirt in the bottom 1/8 of the bag.  Put in cut potatoes (red) eyes down and covered with dirt. Potatoes like the dark.  As the potato vine grows I will put more dirt and straw over it until the bag is full and ready to harvest potatoes. 

Back to the bags... yes, this is how my scattered brain was working today. 

I got to work and began to focus.

I didn't wash the bags (you really need to and I did with the second batch) and the animals seemed to really like me today. The cats sewed with me, the dog licked the bag as I turned it and the lambs wanted to hang around when I went out to feed the chickens. 

Tada!

This was one of my favorite mugs... until it got a crack in it. My aloe is reproducing like crazy... again, so , I use the mug as a planter. Filled the bottom with gravel and the rest with dirt. 

Look! He has hair!

My son gave me a coleus plant. Today it got a trim to make 3 new plants.  I can't wait until it roots in the water so I can transplant it to dirt. 

Someone at work gave me a bunch of nonsprayed apples from their trees.  Apples do not like to touch each other so I had sort out the bad apples and spread them on the counter until I used them. 

Look how happy that apple is!  Organic produce are like us... the look beautiful without anything added, pretend or covering up.  The flaws life creates makes it attractive.

Today I made apple crumble. I had to make the pie filling and the crumble. 

It baked up nicely (needs ice cream - smile). The "white" bits you see is melted butter. 

Happy Sunday. 

peace 

Drying apples , getting dinner ready and what was Dude up to today?

My time was limited this morning since my hours have changed to 10 hour days but only 4 day week at work.  I still had to get some things done. I sliced apples and as I sliced them I soaked them in lemon water.

  Then laid them on the racks to go in the dehydrator.

I made cinnamon ones and ...

Carmel apple. They were all finished by the time I got home. I don't think most will last a day, the way Dude is eating them. 

I made a salad for dinner... garden lettuce, apples, cheddar and bacon. Good stuff. 

Roast more broccoli and tomatoes with balsamic vinegar. 

I bought chicken thighs and cut up onion and peppers on the way to work . I put my salad in a tray of ice to keep until dinner.

Lined a crockpot, added the vegetables.

Then the chicken and a bottle of barbeque sauce. 

In four hours it was ready to eat.  It made the long day away from home not as long. 

I was glad it was still light when I got home. I was so proud of my baby turkeys using the roasting rod for the first time. 

Then a couple of little ones wanted some back scratches and kiss. Who could turn these faces down. 

Dude spent most of the day moving a huge pile of manure to the gardens that were destroyed by the hail. 

I found these two going for a long walk and coming home. 

Everyone was pretty happy tonight.. not too hot but just hot enough. 

peace