Belated September update

I have to apologize that this blog has been neglected since August.  It’s not that we haven’t had anything happening – it’s more that I just have used my time differently.

In September, I participated in Relay for Life in Winona.  It’s sponsored by the American Cancer Society and is an all-night event.  Unfortunately, due to my condition I wasn’t able to stay all night.  But I did help with fund-raising – including a bake sale and some events we were allowed to run at work.  I also sponsored a few luminaries in honor of or in memory of those that have battled cancer – including my grandmother.  There were literally thousands of luminaries at this event.  And once they were all lit, it was quite an impressive sight!

In September, there was also the “Great Flood”.  Of course, our house is high enough that if we ever get flooded, Noah better be around with an ark.  But others weren’t so lucky.  Beaver Creek had a tendency to flood in the spring, so we drove down to the bottoms to see how close to the top of the bridge the water had risen.  Well, we couldn’t even get to the bridge!  The water had flooded all the way back to the next road.  At least it didn’t affect any houses in our area (that I know of) – not like the city of Arcadia that ended up evacuated.

 

We helped a couple of friends out by pressing apples for juice.  We’ve decided that Dave *has* to get his electric-powered version running by next year.  It’s not the pressing that’s tough – it’s the grinding of the apples before you press.  Fortunately we had someone with good arm muscles (way to go Lucy!)  I don’t remember how many apples we ended up doing, but it was a LOT!  We came home with 4 gallons of freshly squeezed apple juice (I think the others each had 12+ gallons).  Unfortunately, I can’t have any this year (since it’s unpasteurized).  But I hear it’s pretty good.  One more item taking up room in our freezer. 

At the end of August, we did some additional food preservation:

 

We planted two plum trees last year, so this year we saw the “first fruits”.  The one tree didn’t produce much, but the other gave us a nice batch of small, very sweet plums.  These were canned as whole plums. I can’t wait to try them!

 

After watching most of my first crop of Roma tomatoes succumb to blight, I was concerned that we wouldn’t have any for canning this year. But then things turned around.  We finally got a large enough batch that I was able to I cook down two large kettles, run them through the food mill, and then have Dave process them.

 

I was hoping to have some bell peppers to freeze this year, but my plants didn’t blossom until early Sept, so they got tossed.  And this was our big jalapeno crop this year.  Yippee!  I’ll have to try again next year.

 

In case you’re wondering, no we did not grow cheese this year.  However, one of our fundraisers for Relay for Life was Walking Tacos.  We had quite the organizer this year who snagged us some donated supplies – meaning, more of the purchase money went straight to the cause.  We had some food leftover, including one extra-large bag of shredded cheese.  I donated money to “purchase” the bag so I could take it home, divide and freeze.  Each of those bags contains 2 cups of cheddar.  And there are 12 bags!!  Thatsalottacheese!  Yet, another space-taker in our freezer.  But I love it.  I won’t have to buy cheese for quite a while.