New Year

I started the new year with a huge project...and I don't mean the new semester. My husband had a friend ask him if he had a use for a lot of apples that had been frozen (they knew we had a pig.) He said "you bet"and we became the proud owners of 2500 lbs of apples from a wrecked semi. He called another friend who had a press for making apple juice to see if he wanted to get in on the deal and we spent several days making apple juice. As we were sorting apples and washing them I selected all of the apples that had not frozen and set them aside. Once we were finished with the juice (we got 101 gallons) I began work on the rest of the apples. I had about 4-5 bushel of good apples. Fortunately I have a mud room that isn't heated so in the winter it is about 40 degrees all the time which is perfect for storing apples. My kids and Mom have been helping me and we have been bottling apple pie filling and applesauce. So that is not how I intended to spend my break between semesters but I know we'll enjoy a year of yummy juice, applesauce, and pies, and I am glad we had this opportunity when I did have time to handle it instead of when I'm busy at school and wouldn't have been able to do it.