Autumnal preserves and thoughts...

I always feel rich when I open my canning cupboard and see the bounty of the harvest and the work of my hands. We'll never grow bored this winter with a nice variety like this on hand.

Here's what's on the shelves:
Top Row: Colorado Peaches and Apple Sauce
Middle Row: Grape Juice, Crabapple Juice, and Chokecherry Juice, the red is Tomatoes and then more Apple Sauce.
Bottom Row: Lots of Apple Butter, more Peaches, and Chokecherry syrup

The grape juice is sweetened but you must strain off the grapes first to drink it. The other juices are unsweetened. I like to can them and use them later when I want to make crabapple jelly or chokecherry jelly. Today I'll add my homemade salsa to the cupboard. The recipe I tried this year was from Mennonite Girls Can Cook. Click here if you'd like to try it.



Nearly every day now there's another something to preserve from the garden or a gift of apples received from a friend. My tomatoes are in full blush and after picking a fruit box full, there are still more on the vine at various stages of ripeness awaiting their turn to be picked and processed into salsa or plain ol' canned tomatoes. I eat as many fresh tomatoes as is humanly possible, but beings I'm the only one in the house who likes tomatoes, a girl can only eat as much as a girl can eat. The rest go into mason jars for soups and stews.

A couple weeks back a dear friend of mine came out with seven 5-gallon buckets of apples from her dad's tree. For several years we have canned apple sauce and apple butter together. She brings the apples, I supply the sugar and the kitchen, and we both share the jars between us. We have a large assortment that go from her house to mine and back again. It works. This year we were only able to can 45 quarts of apple sauce and butter in a day's time. She left me with one bucket of apples and she took home the rest. I've been slowly dipping into the bucket for just enough apples for a pie or an apple crisp. Last night I made apple crisp for dessert and I swear, I ate half of it! With whipped cream! It was that good. Then what did I do today? Polished off the last two pieces. I did ask Hubs if he wanted any and he said no so I didn't try to persuade him any. I'll make another crisp when the Sons are home for the weekend.

I still don't have quite enough cucumbers for my sweet pickle relish. I'm thinking my dad might have a bucket or so that he would share. His cukes did remarkable well this year while mine just barely have gotten started. I might take some of my zucchini and fill in for some of the cukes in the recipe. They work just fine for relish too.

It is definitely feeling like autumn here now. Today we didn't even reach 60 degrees for a high. The wind howled all day long as the leaves were swept off the trees. I noticed on the drive to town this afternoon that the Boxelder Trees along the River are turning a gorgeous yellow and orange. Every kind of bird is flocking together now and I just know that one morning I'll wake up and not hear the meadowlark that I've grown accustomed to hearing each day. The blackbirds will take their rock band to another location and the geese and ducks will fly over in V's honking their last good byes. Every season has its own beauty and nostalgia in the Northland. Good-bye, Sweet Summer. Hello, Crisp Autumn!

The Last Word of a Bluebird
As told to a child


As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, "Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for the skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax-
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing.

~Robert Frost