Apple Sauce, Herbs and Babies

I love how Apple sauce looks. It's so pink and pretty, not to mention delicious! Mum got a great sale on "deer apples" so Saturday morning the girls made apple sauce while the men chopped wood.
It was a gorgeous day; the wind was cool but the sun kept you nice and warm as long as you were moving around.
Even though we've had nights of hard frost my herb garden somehow survived and I was able to collect a good portion of it. I have been so lax in my herb gathering, I could've gotten tons of cuttings off my plants, but was only able to do it a few times.


My Calendula even blossomed again! I was shocked - I missed the first blooms sadly, but I was given another opportunity! I gathered Lemon Balm, Calendula, Applemint and Peppermint - they're hanging upside-down now in my pantry drying out except for another bunch of Lemon Balm that I put in the dehydrator.
From my garden and dried, I have Chamomile, (more) Lemon Balm, Spearmint, Peppermint, Comfry and some others I can't remember at the moment.
They'll be mostly used in teas and baking.

The ladies were also able to finally sit down and pick out days to finish all our projects. We'll be meeting every Wednesday until Christmas to get the candle making, soap making, preserving and organizing done. I can't wait!

I'm now on a big hunt for recipes to use all my lovely herbs in. I know most of them would be lovely in tea and I have recipes for that - but I'd like to make more goods such as the Lavender Bread I made a couple weeks ago. I find them very original and tasty!
Does anyone know of a good website or cookbook they can recommend?

The same apple sauce making Saturday, we also had a bit of a baby party. A friend of ours came over to dinner with her two adorable twins, Issac and Maggie. Sam and Henry had fun playing with them, but Jack the dog was happy to follow them around and be on crumb-control.

And finally a picture of the hard-working men chopping/sawing wood!

This week is fairly quiet - all I have is work, a hair appt, and French lessons, which it turns out, I'm hosting! It'll give me good incentive to clean and get everything tidy!

Have a good week!

Peace,

- Jenny

Seasonal Musings

Today is another gorgeous fall day.
The air smelled beautiful, so I whipped open all my windows and aired out the apartment.
I've started in the mornings to pull back my blankets and sheets, and open the window to give them some freshening up. Then later go back and make my bed.
This keeps the sheets smelling great!

While cleaning, I threw in a Joni Mitchell CD, and found that she's "Autumn" music.
You know how we all have Christmas music? Well, I tend to have seasonal music.
Winter, I tend to listen to more Classical.
Summer I enjoy my 60's Acid Pop, like Strawberry Alarm Clock and Donovan.
Spring is Soft Rock.
Fall is Folk Music.

I don't really know why, but over the last few years, I've started to see a pattern; so Joni really fit the bill!

I gave P.J. a bath today - and I wish I had thought to take a photo! But it was difficult enough trying to keep her in the tub, rub in shampoo and rinse; then put her on the counter to be brushed and hair blow dried!
She was great though, despite a few foiled escape attempts, all she did was mew pitifully and look at me with huge big eyes.
Jeremie and I don't believe in de-clawing, even for an indoor cat; so she could've done some real damage if she wanted to - but we're lucky to have such a chill cat.

(also, I found out it isn't all fur. She really is just fat.)

Ask Mum and she'll tell you that I've been crazy over this book and want to start doing some small-batch canning. I've done canning plenty of times with Mum, but that was big bushel after bushel of tomato canning, and it's quite the operation - so I've always felt a little intimidated by preserving.

This book is gonna help me fix that!

I'm going to grab Mum and my sis, Nessa to come over and help me make some small batches of jellies, jams and preserves.

We'll do it at my place, so I'm comfy and hopefully be able to split some nice preserves later!

My wish list is:

Peach Lavender Jam

Autumn Fruit Jam

Apple Cider Cinnamon Jelly

Spiced Apple Jelly

Blood Orange Port Marmalade

Mango Marmalade

Traditional Rumtopf

I know it's a lot, and I doubt I'll get it all done - but that's what I would love to have in my pantry!

The three of us have a lot of projects that we'll be setting days for this weekend at a family potluck.

Our list of things to accomplish are:

- Soap making

- Candle making

- Freezer meals

and I want to try making Cheese if we have the time for it.

All spring and summer is garden chores, early to late fall is harvesting season, so Winter is when we get to start our fun projects like the ones listed above.
All of this should be done before Christmas as we like to spread it around as gifts.

I'll keep you updated!

Peace,

- Jenny