Apple Picking and Processing

It's that time of year again! I love picking apples, but since I don't have my own tree, I rely upon the generosity of others. This year I had a lady from my parents' church let me pick from her tree (cooking apples) and on Friday we will be picking at the same house as last year (crabapples). We've already picked about 150 lbs of apples, which surpassed last year's amount and we're not even done yet!

I count myself blessed for several reasons: First, because we have my teenage sister-in-law living with us and she's going to sell apple pies at the farmer's market to afford new sneakers. Secondly, because I believe the economic situation is heading in a downward spiral (already groceries are getting quite expensive), so anything we can get for free from nature helps us out. We are making only pies from the cooking apples and will make juice from the crabapples. My 4-year old loves juice!

Due to a late frost this year, there were ZERO saskatoons, which I literally cried about. However, it didn't kill the chokecherries, so we had a couple picks and made pancake syrup from them. I didn't make jelly/jam this year because my husband got sick of it. I made so much jam last year that he was up to his eyeballs, so, no jam this year...

Here is a picture of my pie-making - I usually can my apple pie filling, but since my husband was kind enough to make me crusts, I'll use em!