Apple Butter 2011

Yesterday I decided to use some of my 2 pecks of apples to make this years batch of Apple Butter. 2 pecks is a lot of apples. I used about half of each bag, so I guess I'll be making some more apple stuff as the week goes on. I'm thinking an apple crisp would be nice.

I used my apple, peeler, corer, slicer to do the dirty work.

Filled my big red pot all the way to the top

and after about an hour or so..... Apple Butter

If I loaned you my giant canning pot, would you please leave me a comment to let me know. I searched for too long for the dumb thing today and came up with nothing. Of course I'd already started the apple butter, so I had to improvise.

This is actually my pasta pot, but in a pinch it works pretty well as a canning pot

I ended up with 10 8oz jars and 6 4 oz jars with a not quite full jar for us to enjoy now.






I really enjoy making apple butter. I especially enjoy cleaning up the "almost" empty pot.

Sally

The Rest Of Our Weekend

I almost hate to write this because I don't want to bring on a bought of bad luck, but we have had 4 absolutely beautiful weekends in a row here in Louisville. This past weekend was probably as close to perfect as you can get. We walked at the zoo Saturday morning with friends Kathy and Gordon and then we drove over to Indiana
for lunch at Huber's Farm. I bought 2 Pecks of apples which is actually half a bushel, but I have no idea how many pounds. It's a lot of apples though, that's for sure.







Sunday morning Alan and I hiked in the Bernheim Forest
We had been told that this was a beautiful and well maintained forest and we were not disappointed. I'm sure the weather helped a lot, but we will definitely go back there again. We did the Iron Ore Hill Loop Trail and the Jackson-Yoe Loop. I liked the first trail better, not quite as much ups and downs, and attached to the trail was this beautiful bridge overlook called the Canopy Tree Walk. The view from up there was something.



Since it had warmed up a bit by the time we got to the second trail there were some bugs to deal with. I don't do bugs buzzing in my ears well and that with some pretty steep uphill climbs had me in a pretty foul mood. Poor Alan tried to be positive, but I wasn't having any of it. 1.5 miles later things improved greatly. We found the perfect spot for our picnic lunch

Keeping our fingers crossed that the weather holds and next weekend is just as pretty.

Sally

Never A Dull Moment

Look at those scary Halloween eyes. Speaking of scary, Maggie gave us a huge scare last Friday afternoon. Everything seemed fine until it wasn't. I noticed after letting her in from the backyard around 2:30 that she was acting "funny" and then she started throwing up blood. Not just a little blood, but lots and lots of it. Alan was presenting at a meeting an hour away so I just called our vet (in a panic I'm sure). They told me to bring her right in. The next two hours were very long. No one could really figure out what was going on with her. They took X-rays and did blood work and finally decided that it would be best if she stayed the night in the clinic. During this time Alan had gotten home and "collected" a sample of the blood so that the doctor could get a better idea of what had come up. The good news was that she had not thrown up again, the bad news was that she was still acting very strange.

We worried about her most of the night and then the next morning we got the news that she seemed to be feeling better. We were able to bring her home Saturday afternoon with a bunch of medications and special food. We were supposed to keep her calm, but if you know Maggie, you know that that was not easy. She was so glad to be home. She was also exhausted. The poor thing couldn't keep her eyes open. We have no idea what happened to her. Maybe she ate something bad. We may never know. As for now she is sporting this cute little poodle leg where her IV was and she seems to be almost back to normal. I'm not even going to tell you how much the whole thing cost, but it was enough to make me think twice about pet insurance.

Sally

Guest Bathroom Paint Job

Here is a picture of our tiny little downstairs bathroom last year, right after we moved in. It was OK, but in need of a fresh coat of paint. You can't tell from the picture, you will just have to trust me. It was kind of gross.

So a week or so ago I bought some paint. What a difficult decision. I had a couple of samples taped to the wall. One lighter than the original and one darker. I liked the blue color so I knew I wanted to stick with that, but man are there a lot of blues to choose from. I chose the darker blue, hoping that it wouldn't make the room feel like a cave. It's called Smokey Blue from the Home Depot.

Alan took down all of the stuff hanging on the walls and last Sunday I spent a couple hours painting.

Here is the finished room. What do you think? I know it's hard to tell, but in real life there is a BIG difference. I'm just glad that it's fresh and clean. Just the way a bathroom is supposed to be.

Sally

Pumpkin Beer

Have I gone too far? I don't think so. Alan loves the Oktoberfest, but I'm sticking with the Pumpkin. It really is pretty good and the cute little pumpkin is on the bottles as well. Cute beer: that's the kind for me.
Sally

Autumn Leaves......

It's a constant battle. Me vs the the leaves and acorns. I wish I could tell you that I am winning, but that is just not the case.

No matter how hard I try to keep the deck clean, the leaves just keep on falling. You might think that they are "pretty", and I would agree, except for the fact that all of the half eaten acorn pieces can really do a number on your bare feet.

My weapon of choice is this gorgeous red Turbo leaf blower. In less than 5 minutes I can have the whole deck spotless and back to normal.

Just the way I like it. Not a leaf in sight...

Well, maybe one leaf.

If I'm lucky it will stay like this for about 10 minutes, and then the battle starts all over.


I have to remind myself not to look up. If I do I see that there are still thousands of leaves left to fall and that can be a little discouraging.

Sally

Weekend In Review

It was a beautiful weekend here in Louisville. Summer seems to be putting up a little last stand effort. It looks like October, but it feels like August with temperatures in the 80's. We tried our best to take full advantage of the weather.

The zoo is almost ready for Halloween. Millions of pumpkins line the walkways and the crazy mist machines are working. We were excited to finally see the grizzly bears again. The two cubs and mother were rescued from Missouri I think last spring and we have only seen them once before.

Remember this scary place form last year? Waverly Hills Manor is one of the most haunted places in Louisville. It's an old deserted hospital, where many people died of tuberculosis back in the day.

Pretty scary looking isn't it? Well this just happens to be "close" to the location of this weeks hike.


We decided to try out Waverly Hills Park. Mainly because the trails were the right distance and again it's not that far from home.

It was pretty enough I guess. The leaves here have begun to change, and this tiny white flowered plant called White Snakeroot lined most of the trails. We did have to share the road with mountain bikers which was interesting. I had a few issues just walking on these paths and they were just zipping up and down the hills like crazy people.
The bikers were all very polite, giving us plenty of notice to get out of the way and always greeting us and thanking us for moving off the trail. We also noticed that they tended to wear very brightly colored clothes and most of them had long hair blowing in the breeze. They were not exactly quiet, so the idea of being out in the woods, one with nature and all did not really apply to this hike.






We saw some interesting molds and mosses. With all of the leaves and acorns falling out of the trees at times it sounded like it was raining. I thought there were a lot of ups and downs on this hike, but Alan says that we didn't climb as high as last week. We walked about 3.6 miles and then I needed to go to the little girls room.

Thank goodness there was a porta- potty near the lake. Not my first choice, but what was I to do?





We were going to try and do another short mile loop, but it was already 11:30 and so we decided to call it a day.


Hopefully the weather will hold because we have plans to hike in Indiana next weekends with some friends. I'm thinking that a picnic might be a good idea.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Sally