COUNTING MY BLESSINGS, HOLY MOLY, IT'S ALREADY PAST MID OCTOBER.

 Thanksgiving came and went and I'm very thankful for all my blessings. On Sunday I cooked a small turkey and mashed potatoes, squash, broccoli, and gravy, pickles of course, and made two lemon pies. I usually prepare everything early in advance but somehow, I didn't this time. I had to split the turkey in half and all the food in two to be shared with my grandaughter's family of 5 and I delivered it to them. Unbeknown to me, my granddaughter wasn't feeling well enough to prepare her turkey dinner and she was pleased to receive the dinner already cooked. I didn't make the dressing but gave her a box of StoveTop as I had forgotten to buy celery to make the dressing. My son Vaughan joined George and me and we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner without the dressing, (my favorite part)lol... Of course, I got too busy enjoying dinner to take any pictures.

We've had lovely weather and I took advantage to clean a large overgrown weedy daylily flower bed. It took me over three afternoons to get it cleaned. The sun was low so the photo is of poor quality.

On October 3rd.  We had our first frost. You can see where the sun hit, it melted the frost. 

 Luckily, I cut a large bouquet from my two Hydrangea bushes that grow on the front lawn before the frost hit. Now,  I can enjoy them all winter when the snow flies. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the bouquet but it's huge and I put it in front of the fireplace.

On Tuesday the 4th, I went apple picking with a friend at Everett Apple Orchard in Islandview,  the same place I went last fall, and picked 40 pounds of apples to be divided between my granddaughter, my son, and us. Two days later, I got a call from my friend to tell me that she had tested positive for Covid. It will be two weeks on Tuesday since I was exposed to her but I'm still symptom-free and tested negative. Hopefully, I'll stay symptom-free.  

My daughter Jackie teaches weaving in the textile department at the New Brunswick College of Crafts and Designs, and since we had an abundance of squash, she took a trunkful of squash to share with students. Here is the student's thank you card. Getting a thank you card was extra special.

A few of my followers were interested in seeing the bottles of jam, pickles, vegetables, and meat that I preserved. This is what I have left after selling 5 cases of pickles and one case plus 3 bottles of jam at the Farmer's Market and giving some to family members and friends and we ate some of course. I don't know exactly how many bottles I made in all but it was around, or over 300 bottles. 

Carrots and pork and some jam.

Carrots and pork ( same as previous picture)

Here I have Lady Ashburnham, beans, preserved beets, beet pickles, green beans.

Lots of large jars of Dill pickles, bread and Butter pickles

Corn kernels from my garden and Million Dollar relish. I would have preserved more corn but the electric fence switch was left open during the night and the raccoons devastated my second harvest. Hopefully, it will not happen next year. 

This is a poor picture from the end of one shelf. It wasn't easy to take good pictures of all the bottles on the shelves but at least, you get an idea as the shelf is full on both sides.   I also filled a brand new 7-square-foot freezer full to the brim with veggies the rest in my other freezers. There is an overabundance of potatoes, squash, and twice the amount of sweet potatoes that I harvested last year. No pictures.

Then I bought more bottles while they were on special for next year as they are very expensive.  They will come in handy if we are still alive next summer. I still have a lot of small and large jars not shown.

This is my Sundrop and red daylily bed after I removed the tall debris. I still need to sweep the brick border. The small green plants are next year's Sundrops.  I'm still in the process of putting my gardens to bed for the winter. I'm slow at getting them cleaned as I have so many of them all over the yard and only work when it's warm in the afternoon. 

I cleaned this bed yesterday and weeded around one of my Hydrangea between raindrops... I now have 8  and 1/2 flowerbeds cleaned with more to do and also my vegetable garden. I'll spare you any more garden pictures.

George and my son Vaughan put a new metal roof over my sunroom so no more leaks in my ceiling. Yay!  Now if I can get my ceiling fixed.

I'm booked for a Rug hook-in in St Andrews New Brunswick in November. There is only room for 35 rug hookers. I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun.

Thanks for visiting my blog. It always feels good when you leave a kind comment. 

I TOOK A LITTLE TRIP IN THE COUNTRY

 Seeing all the beautiful Autumn colors in their vibrant hues just made me glad to be alive. Apple picking was calling me back and so I made the time and went alone, this time.  Do you want to come along with me? 

It was a beautiful day and the place wasn't packed like the first time I went.  The first time, we went on a Saturday and it was crowded. George had a sore back so he picked apples from the trees and I picked apples on the ground. We didn't walk around the farm and returned home as soon as we could. 

It's a beautiful farm with lots of lands covered with a large variety of apple trees, big barns,  a big farmhouse and other buildings,  fields and horses in the pastures. This time I wasn't rushed and I walked around and took some pictures with my cell phone. 

The farm is situated high on a hill, off the highway, with the picturesque St John Valley down below.  What a gorgeous view. There are rows upon rows of well-kept apple trees and a constant picking of apples for market and people picking apples for themselves, like me.  I didn't want to take too many pictures of the people for their own privacy. 

Upon arriving I went to get a little plastic cart to carry the apples and I asked for three plastic bags.  These large plastic bags with string, holds approximately 10 pounds of apples when filled and tied. They weigh the apples, we pay and we can use the little cart to carry the apples back to the car and then we return the little cart to the kid amusement park. There are many carts, and this is only a small portion of the playground.

There were lots of these rocking horses, carts and other kids playground toys.

Don't you just love this old car with the HoneyCrisp licence and their Everettapples.com

Here is the front view and see all the rocking horses in the background and an old Ice cream truck canteen.

Two horses in the higher pasture.

Two more horses the lower pasture. The black horse is hiding his male appendage behind the post. I didn't want to embarrass my viewers.

One small section of the apple trees by the parking area.

This is the long road downhill. It's a very steep hill and I couldn't see the slope from the top.

Some of my dehydrated apples in bottles.  I use the largest wide-mouth quarts jars I had. I made about 17 jars and there are still apples to process. I'll probably freeze some for apple pies.

I dehydrate them at night and by morning, they are dry enough to bottle. It takes about 10 hours to make them nice and crisp.

I can fit more in the oven. My oven has a dehydrator function and I prefer this method. I dip the slices in a mixture of half bottled lemon juice and half water. I place them on a clean tea towel to catch the drips. I place the apple slices on cheese cloths to facilitate the removal so they don't stick to the cooling racks.

After talking to my daughter Christine, I decided to do like her and boil the apple skins and cores and make scrap Apple Jelly. I made 10 one-cup jars.

 A few days ago I made another 2 batches of Rhubarb, Strawberry Pineapple jam as I sold all two cases I made at the church Farmer's Market. Poor George didn't have a single jar left for him. 

We had the usual Turkey dinner with all the trimmings for Thanksgiving but somehow, I didn't take any pictures. I even made 2 pumpkin pies and between 4 people, it's all gone. 

Sorry for the length of the post. Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment. I appreciate your kind comments.

Julia