Fall Harvest

Bob is enjoying his time at home once again. He really didn't get to garden this past summer like he enjoys, but he did manage to plant a rather large garden and it has been very plentiful. This week Bob has been busy getting ready for evangelistic meetings that start tomorrow night. He is the speaker and will be using power-point for his presentations. This is new to Bob so he is at the church tonight with a computer guru to make sure everything is working properly. Not only has Bob been preparing for this three weeks series of meetings, he has spent some time getting the house and yard ready for winter. He won't be able to get everything done that should be done, but he'll get most of the "have-to's" done.

Today Bob replaced several of the chimney blocks and smoke stack. The old ones had deteriorated and we would have never made it through the winter without problems. He also dug potatoes and beets and brought in the pumpkins, gourds, buttercup winter squash, and spaghetti squash. Tomorrow he will put most of these in the root cellar to use during the winter months.

Bob also picked several baskets full of concord grapes. Tomorrow I'll make some grape juice and grape jelly. I'm also going to make more applesauce. Tonight I went to a women's Bible study class and one of the ladies had brought homemade applesauce. I took a small bowl of it to taste, and it was so good I had to find out her secret. She said that she cooked the apples with a little raspberry/apple frozen concentrated juice and then added raspberries. After it had all cooked down, she mashed it. She didn't add any sweetener of any kind and it was wonderful! I'm going to make some like that tomorrow using some of the raspberries I froze last Friday from our berry patch. Oh, the color of the applesauce was a beautiful pink. There were also homemade pumpkin muffins at the class and I ate more than I should have. They were the miniature muffins, so taking two or three didn't look to much like a pig.

After the Bible class we worked on stained glass candle holders. I'm really happy with the way mine turned out. The instructor took them home to grout them for us and will bring them back to our next class. I took my camera to the class, but forgot to take the chip from the computer so I don't have any pictures of the class.

A bucket of potatoes and a bucket of beets.


A wheel barrel full of red potatoes. Dirt and all!

Bob stills has to dig the Yukon Gold and russets.

A big pile of pumpkins, gourds, buttercup squash, and spaghetti squash.

Another pile of pumpkins and squash.

Here are the grapes Bob picked from our vineyard. We'll make juice tomorrow and maybe jelly. Sometimes I freeze the pulp after making the juice and make the jelly at a later time. I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. It's nice to take out a bag of grape pulp and make jelly. It sure doesn't take very long when it's pre-measured and frozen.

It's Still Fall - I Think

This morning on my way to work I experience a few snow showers. During the morning, there were several snow flakes coming down. Nothing accumulated, but it was exciting to watch. It really is beautiful here when it snows. I don't think it will be too much longer before we get measurable amounts of snow. But until winter settles in, I'm going to continue enjoying the beauty of fall and the fall treats that find their way to our office.

This morning on the conference table was a basket of homemade carmel dipped apples. I saved mine so I could take it home and share with Bob.

The apples were all packaged so nicely.

Without the wrapping you can see how delicious it looks. A Granny Smith apple dipped in carmel, dribbled with chocolate, and topped with crushed peanuts.
The lady that made them said they were easy to make, but I know I would have a gigantic mess if I tried. All of hers looked perfect!!

Mom's Apple Cake Recipe

I was excited to receive an apple recipe today from Rachael. We have a lot of apples so tonight when I got home from work I decided to make the apple cake rather than make applesauce again (last night I make six jars of applesauce). Once the cake came out of the oven and cooled a little, I couldn't resist trying a piece. It's delicious!!! Bob wanted a piece too, but he doesn't eat between meals so he said he'd have a piece for breakfast. Funny, I'll have one for breakfast too!!!

Mom's Apple Cake

6 apples, I used McIntosh apples

1 T cinnamon

5 T sugar

2 3/4 cups flour

1 T baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup orange juice

2 1/2 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

1 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean.

I am changing the name of this cake to Rachael's Apple Cake just because she's the one that discovered it!!!

Hallelujah! The House is Finished!!!!!

The house is finished!!! Shannon, the kids, and I had a great time doing gymnastics on the living room floor. That carpet is sure nice and soft and clean!!! The appraiser came today and tomorrow the inspector will come and hopefully we will have the occupancy permit. Ryan and Lisa are anxious to get moved in to their new home. It turned out really nice. Everthing is like new. Bob was singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" on the way home.

It was so much fun playing with the kids. Shannon called me this evening and asked if I was sore? Nope! Shannon wasn't so lucky.

Signs of Fall at our House

Here are a few pictures around our place that don't really do justice to the beauty, but you can get an idea of how beautiful it is here.

This is one of the maple trees in our front yard.

Lola

The back of our house

The two kitties that live at house house now.

Looking out toward the back of the property.

Concord grapes.

Punkin enjoying the beautiful weather.

We have a lot of work to do before we are ready for winter. So far all we have done is have the heating oil tank filled. We still need to have wood and coal delivered. Bob has to repair the chimney too. Bob brought in the winter squash today, but we still have to dig the potatoes, carrots, and beets. Weather reports predict a possibility of snow this Thursday. We need to hurry.

Fall Friday

Today was a very busy day. We're trying to finish up on the house Ryan and Lisa are going to buy and we're trying to get our house ready for winter.

These are the beautiful fall leaves that are presently covering our driveway. If we don't get a big wind storm soon, we'll have to rake them up.

This is a picture of the house Ryan and Lisa are going to buy. I had to go down early this morning to meet with the district manager of Home Depot and the owner of Innovative Stone. The granite counter tops that were installed in the house, have pits all over them and I'm having a fit. They are suppose to get back with me next week to let me know what can be done about it. My granite counter top doesn't have pits and Lori's granite counter top doesn't have pits and I've never seen a display one with pits.

This picture didn't turn out very well and I only took one. I've already washed and put them in the freezer. Bob picked these today from our raspberry patch. It's suppose to freeze tonight, so this is probably the last of the berries.

Bob found a yellow iris in my flower "cutting" garden. I think it must be confused about what time of year it is.

I also picked up this machine to help me with making the applesauce.

We baked buttercup winter squash today. We have quite a lot of this from our garden.

Bob seasoned it with a little salt, butter, and maple syrup. It is delicious.

I'm glad it's Sabbath and I can relax. Bob has the fireplace lit and I think I'll go join him on the couch.

Lori Comes to Visit . . .

The weather here is absolutely perfect. And the fall colors are at their peak. Just beautiful. We were so blessed to have Lori come for a long weekend to visit. She and Todd had both planned to come but with the weather being so nice, he had much to do on the farm to finish off the season. Lori brought a surprise with her. Kristen!!! Lori asked Rachael and Derrick if Kristen could come along with her to help with Anthony and I'm sure glad they agreed. Anthony has changed so much since the last time I got to hold him back in May. The weekend was wonderful and it ended much too soon. The most disappointing thing that happened this weekend was that I misplaced my camera and missed many "Kodak" moments!!! I'll share a few of the pictures that I took before my misfortune.

As soon as Kristen arrived she found the kitties, or should I say, the kitties found Kristen. These are Matt's kittens and are two of the sweetest cats we've ever been around.

Kristen helping Anthony play with his new tractor driving toy from auntie Shannon and Madeline.

Kristen played a few songs for me on the piano. She is very good and so talented. I wish she had brought her music so she could have played special music at church on Sabbath.

Madeline and Anthony playing with his new toy. I think he's showing Madeline how it works.

On Friday we went shopping at the Outlet Mall and Lori found socks and a hat to go with an outfit she had order on-line for Anthony. He loved his new hat.

Anthony is really getting into this driving thing!

During our Friday afternoon shopping spree, we stopped by a Mennonite store and they had the most adorable little play houses. This is the inside loft of one of the houses. Lori's going to ask Todd to build one for Anthony. She took lots of pictures so he'll know exactly what she wants.

I love this little boy!!!

Shannon went into the attic and pulled this toy out for Anthony to play on. He loved it.

Tony loved bath-time.

Anthony decided to do some exploring on his own.

He found the stairs and started checking them out.

He also checked out some pumpkins from grandpa's garden.

We couldn't pass up using the eggplants and tomatoes Lori brought with her from the family farm in Michigan. We made eggplant sandwiches!!! Oh, were they good!!!! I wish I had more. We also made eggplant lasagna which we enjoyed Saturday evening. Lisa and Ryan and the children, Shannon and Madeline, Lori and Anthony and Kristen, and Grandpa and me all little piggies when it came to dinner.

Anthony tried homemade canned pears for the first time. All by himself!

Ready for another meal.

This time, auntie Shannon fed him. He is such a good little eater.

After dinner, Anthony liked to help clean-up.

What a wonderful weekend! I have been so blessed.

This past summer has been filled with many blog posts that should have been posted, I just was having too much fun and it takes me so long to post. Ryan and Lisa's house is almost completed and soon they will be moving into their newly remodeled home and life for Bob and I will be back to . . . well I'll just say there will be less activity here at home. I'll miss all the hugs and kisses. We've enjoyed having them live with us for the past five months.