I MADE SOMETHING . . .

ON MAKING APPLESAUCE

I was "dialoguing" with Harriet (my oldest sister) last week, questioning her about the roadside apples -- the country apple trees. I wondered if I could use those apples.

Harriet wrote back that Bill's mother was interested in roadside apples and they would stop and check them out. Sometimes she would pick a sampling of apples from specific trees in order to test them. If the deer eat them, that's an initial sign they are good, Harriet said.

A tree on June's property, right in the bend from Dobson Road to our lane, has been calling my name. Prior to writing Harriet, I had picked a bucket of those apples and experimented with cooking them and then straining for the juice. I wasn't impressed. The apples were small, I tired of peeling them, and once I cored them there wasn't much left. I told Harriet about this experience. We didn't peel them, Harriet wrote back, going on to explain that they simply cut them up and cooked them -- peels, cores, and all. And then Bill's mother put them through a press. Harriet said she couldn't remember the name of the press, but Mother and Vance had one, too. Aha! The Food Foley! – I thought. Yes, the Foley food mill, affirmed Harriet. I knew right where that old Food Foley was and for once it was where I was!

So, late Wednesday afternoon Nellie and I went down the lane and I picked more apples while she rooted around for "grounders" she could munch. I don't know what kind of apples they are. They remind me of the apples on a vintage tablecloth – mostly yellow green but tinged with red or streaks of red -- very pretty in the afternoon light. Then I chopped them up like Harriet said and cooked them with just a half cup of water until they were mushy. Then I ran them through the Food Foley, a food mill that sieves the pulp from the peels and seeds. I poured the pulp back into the pot, added only a half cup of brown sugar and two teaspoons of cinnamon. Seven cups of lovely applesauce!

But – I wasn't raised this way. My mother made applesauce with "green transparent" apples, cooking apples – quite tart. I don't know if we see those much anymore. The apple tree in the side yard at the Orofino house had transparents, and I used to see them advertised by local valley growers. From those apples Mother would make applesauce and pies. And Mother believed in peeling the apples prior to cooking; she said she could tell if the apples hadn't been peeled – she could taste the peels. Well, my taster just isn't that discriminating, and besides, we all know the peels are good for us.

HOW ABOUT YOU? Do you like applesauce? Do you make applesauce? What's your favorite apple variety for cooking? Which variety is your favorite for eating? KW

KATHY’S VINTAGE SEWING ROOM (2)

One picture is worth a thousand words," as they say, so here are pictures of Kathy's "new improved" vintage sewing room. Last month I bought a new Bernina sewing machine and am gradually acquainting myself with it. It doesn't quite fit in my old Singer cabinet, but I'm using it for now. Eventually I hope to have a table that better fits the Bernina. Then we might remove the table from the cabinet and just use it for fabric and notions storage. You can never have enough fabric storage.
My sewing room is adjacent to Hallie's room and they connect by a walk-through closet. It's interesting, though, that the two rooms have entirely different "affects," I guess you would call it. Hallie's room is always bright and cheery while the other room seems more shaded. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed outfitting the vintage sewing room, which has brought out its unique personality, and I also use Hallie's room. I'm quite at home in Hallie's room because it's the room that was mine when I was growing up.

Nothing great has come out of the vintage sewing room yet, but as you can see, my bulletin board is covered with inspiration gathered through the years. I find it's taking a lot of courage to get started on those projects. I put them off, thinking one day I would have the skills to do them beautifully, and now that it's time to plunge in, I'm learning what was always true – you just have to plunge in. And the process has brought me once again face to face with what is unfinished. Sometimes I can deal with it – and sometimes I just put the lid on the box and stash it back in the closet. For instance, yesterday I came up with a box containing many of my mother's sewing notions, including packages of pink pearls left over from my wedding dress. No, they don't take up much room, so I keep them.
We'll return to town on Monday. The old Dodge Ram is loaded with wood, so the sewing machine is going to stay here for "her" own protection – along with many other things. We'll have a good time anyway – don't worry!

[I took this picture of the south side of the house especially to show the second story windows. The window on the left is Hallie's room while the one on the right is the sewing room. The square window in the middle provides daylight -- or moonlight -- in the walk-through closet.] KW

A COUNTRY TALE

This morning started as any other. I got up and puttered around in my robe and slippers. Nellie heard me and came to the door to be let in. We greeted each other with affection. Mike got up, got dressed, and came down to the kitchen. His first task was to don his helmet and a pair of leather gloves and head to the shed to pull down a couple of wasp nests he had discovered there. He wanted to take care of that chore during the morning cool when the wasps are inactive. Then he returned to the kitchen to bake his oatmeal bran muffins, the first step being to pre-heat the oven. A couple of minutes passed, and he said, "What's that smell? It smells like bacon! And the oven's smoking!"

I couldn't remember that anything spilled in the oven. Finally, we were able to bring ourselves to open the door and look. And there, neatly arranged in the front of the oven, was a cup and a half – possibly more – of dog food slowly burning as the oven pre-heated. Well, I didn't put it there, and Mike says he didn't put it there, and we're sure Nellie didn't do it. So, the horrible thing is that we have another rodent invasion. As Mike says, "This means war!"

To deal with the matter at hand – cleaning the oven – I grabbed a pan and a spatula. The food had begun to burn but fortunately we caught it before it burned onto the oven. We then set the pan out on the porch. During the process, Nellie ambled into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. Eventually she requested permission to exit the house where she discovered the burned dog food cooling. She looked at it a while, then proceeded to eat every bite!

Nellie's food and water are kept in the kitchen, and she has some strange eating habits. At suppertime, she eats just a little, then waits until Mike and I have finished cooking, eating, and doing the dishes, hoping for better pickin's. She might eat more of her food but often leaves some in her dish. This practice of leaving food is now problematic and humans will have to step in to protect the kitchen.

Interesting, though – I found just one "mouse sign." And I've been a little worried about the mice because this is the time of year they begin to come in, and I have three boxes of pears ripening in the utility room. I found no sign of rodent activity there – or anywhere else, for that matter. KW

MAKING WOOD

See the three dead trees in the middle of the picture? If you enlarge the view and look closely, you can make out Mike's white hardhat at the base of one of the trees. Although we have plenty of wood for this next year, Mike identified those as trees we should make into wood this year – while they were still good for wood, while we could still get them out of that area easily. Now is the window of opportunity for such activity – after harvest and before planting. Yesterday (Wednesday, Sept. 10) was the day. I don't have much to say about it. Mike did most of the work while I served as a rather bored assistant. My mind kept wandering away to the sewing room. Rather than cutting and splitting in the field, Mike preferred to take the wood to town in 8- and 4-foot lengths so that he can work on a little at a time. However, I was unable to assist in lifting those lengths of greater diameter, so those pieces were cut to our standard 16 inches. I guess it took us 4-5 hours – and that was the work of the day, though I did other chores: two loads of laundry, finished the pears, watered the raspberries, took Nellie for a walk, and made a crockpot supper of creamed chukar.

The garbanzo field on "June's" place was harvested yesterday. They used two older combines and two dump trucks -- not quite the same as Meacham Farms. The right photo is just beyond the pond while the left is just beyond our barn. KW

AUNT IDA LAMBERT

There are several "Aunt Idas" on my family tree, but Aunt Ida Lambert is on Mike's. In the 1970s and '80s, Aunt Ida was probably the oldest living member of Mike's family on the Warnock side. Mike thinks she was his Grandfather Warnock's cousin. Her maiden name was Warnock. When we visited Mike's mother in Arkansas, we called on Aunt Ida several times. The first visit was in her home; the second was at a nursing home. She was just as lucid and gracious when we saw her at the nursing home as she was on the previous visit. She lived into her 90s, I believe. When Mike explained to her that he was Bennie's son, Aunt Ida said, "And your birthday is January 23, 1941." She was locally famous for her facility to remember birthdays. Then Aunt Ida added, "That Bennie – she's ideal! She's ideal!" That was the first time I had ever heard the word "ideal" applied to a person.

I thought of Aunt Ida yesterday. Mike agreed to help me pick the pears, and in the process, he used several ladders. When he used the taller stepladder, I held it as he climbed to the top to get the uppermost fruit. Mike said, "If you want to continue to have a husband, hold tight to that ladder." That's when I thought of Aunt Ida.

In explaining her own history, Aunt Ida told us matter-of-factly about her first husband, a Lambert, who climbed a tree to "show out" for her and fell and broke his neck. It had to have been a horrible thing for her to witness, but she didn't so much as hesitate in the telling of it. She went on to tell us that after that she married his brother. I know she raised children, but neither of us remember whether she had any of her own.

A most interesting woman – was Aunt Ida Lambert. KW

WORK IN RETIREMENT

"We have a lot to do this week," Mike announced. "I guess we'll have to prioritize and pace ourselves."

Yeah – like that's going to happen, I think to myself. If there's a chore to be done, Mike doesn't rest until it's done. We arrived at the homestead at 11:00 yesterday, having already loaded the old beater and driven here – what some might consider almost a day's work -- and by lunchtime Mike had unloaded the truck, put away what he could, and inserted new ballasts into a window. After lunch he worked on the Wolverine, then planted the raspberries. The photo shows him digging a hole using the old auger, which we surmise could have been Grandpa Jack's. Late in the afternoon he took a rather short bike ride, then began erecting the utility shelving on the kitchen porch, a project he had to give up with the waning light. He grilled bass for supper, which was later than usual, before showering and watching the double-header Monday Night Football presentation (part of which he had recorded).

My new sewing machine, "Bernie," was calling my name, but I also had work to do. The box of pears was ripe and ready for the dryer, so as soon as I had put away the groceries, I began to pare and slice them. My dried pears have been lauded by samplers in Seattle and Denver, and word has reached me from Philadelphia that they were spoken of in Utah. This year I will keep drying them as long as the pears remain available and affordable. Of course, the pears are just naturally good, and I add no preservatives. Once the product comes out of the dryer, I put it in baggies for the freezer to insure against spoilage. I helped Mike plant the raspberries and walked with Nellie while he rode his bike, but aside from that, I spent the afternoon paring and slicing, just finishing at dinnertime.

Right after breakfast this morning, Mike returned to the porch to continue putting together the shelving unit. "Snaps together in minutes," says the caption on the box, "with only a hammer." Mike amends: "Snaps together in minutes – about 120 of them – with only a hammer, a screwdriver, a block of wood, and an assistant." I, the assistant, was out on the porch in my robe and pajamas.

But look at the change it makes in the mechanical room! (Sorry – I forgot to take a "before" picture. Too bad.) My main complaint had been that our work shoes and boots sat on the floor under the window, and last year my rubber boots rotted and split – I figure from the sunlight. The shelving brings the footware as well as rags and bags off the floor and out of direct sunlight. Much neater and handier.

"I'm so proud of you and Dad for staying busy," said Hallie. I'm just surprised it ever occurred to her that might be a problem. And the work goes on . . .