Applesauce Day!

My Mom is one of those Pioneer Women who can do anything. She can cook, clean, bake...she can even shoot. Seriously. My old boss, Dr. Craig used to tell people my Mom was Annie Oakley. He got such a kick out of my stories of a gunshot waking me up in the morning as Mom was trying to kill a crow out the kitchen window. No joke, folks. My Dad purposefully left a screen off a kitchen window doing their kitchen remodel so Mom could continue to shoot birds.

All that to say... growing up, my Mom was incredibly resourceful about canning and making healthy food for her family on the cheap. I always swore I would NEVER can, freeze, hot water bath anything and give my kids preservatives up the whazoo to avoid all that sticky, hot, exhaustion!!!! Well... I now have my first child, and realize canning is actually a lost art. I told my Mom I would love to make Macy applesauce this year and she was thrilled!

We started off the day saying goodbye to the triplets, picked two more large boxes of apples off my Grandpa's tree (to add to the 3 Mom, Dad and Katie had already picked), a quick walk-through at Front Street Furnishings Liquidation Sale (Very good prices if you are looking for anything in particular), the grocery store for lids and sugar and then back to Mom's for lunch, put Macy down for a nap and... WORKED. OUR. REARS. OFF.
This was after 2.5 hours and about 20 quarts. Macy woke up and we let her sample our product. She loved it!



She was trying to lick the bowel! She had two helpings! I just put a little rice cereal right into it and she ate it right up. So great.
Mom and I weren't even half done at this point so I fashioned a little "jail" for Macy to play in and she had a ball rolling around and playing with her toys.

There was applesauce EVERYWHERE!
So. For the record. 5 boxes of apples= Mom and I working 7 hours straight (Dad about an hour at the end), and 66 QUARTS OF APPLESAUCE! I want to record this for next year to see how much we need to do.

It was a very long day but we had perfect canning weather and Janice stopped by towards the end and played with Macy, which was wonderful. I think it works out to about 20 cents a jar and it's all healthy and completely ready to eat. After doing this, I thought, "Why not do pears and peaches too?" That would wrap up all the fruit Macy would need for the rest of the year and cost very little. I'm realizing I may have the makings of a Pioneer Woman after all!

Thank you Mom for all your help! Love you!