Apples, Apples, Apples

The weather this spring and summer was so bad that the fruit trees around here really suffered.  There was a random late freeze in the spring that killed off the majority of the peach blossoms that had come out, so finding good peaches to freeze and can this year was a little difficult, and we only got enough for freezing into peach cobbler/pie filling.  Then I was crossing my fingers that the pears would turn out, because really, my kids love canned pears way more than peaches.  Well, the time to start finding pears came and we started calling around to the local orchards we knew, but nobody had pears because of how hot the summer was.  One orchard's pears started growing on the trees and were looking good, but never grew past the size of a small ball because the orchard's well ran dry and they couldn't water the trees anymore. The other orchard we called said they got a total of 6 pears off their trees.  6!  So, I guess we'll have to survive the winter with the few quarts of pears we have left over from last year and we crossed our fingers about apples.  Last week, we called up to Regier Orchard in Whitewater to see if they had apples ready to pick.  They told Royal that the apples were so small they weren't letting people come up and pick, but Royal persisted and said we wanted the apples for applesauce, so we didn't care how big they were or if some of them had hail damage, and they finally relented and said they would let us at least come take a look for ourselves and decide if we wanted them.

So, last Friday, Royal took the day off of work and after we picked Jayden up from school, we drove up to the orchard.  I love the owners of Regier orchard, they are the sweetest, old couple.  And the man was so embarrassed about the state of his apples he just kept apologizing for them.  Then once he found out we were from Washington - his mecca of apple growing - he about put the kabosh on us going out to the orchard because he didn't want us to see his trees.  But finally we talked him into it and went out to see what kind of apples we were going to be able to take home with us.

Jayden was a lot more help this year!  He picked lots of low hanging apples, you know the ones I can reach too, and then used the ladder to get up high in the trees.

Willow played in the truck the whole time.  :)

Once Jayden got bored with picking, he became more interested in trying to climb the trees and hang from the branches.

I got to ride in the back of the truck with the kids to and from the orchard.  I'm pretty sure they thought this was the funnest part!

We managed to pick almost 90 pounds of apples!  Pretty good for about 90 minutes of picking the kids let us do before they were begging for dinner!

And then we've spent that last 4 days finishing up our work.  Royal did all of the quartering and coring, and it probably took him a good 8 hours because 1) the apples were so small and 2) he had a new helper this year.

Then, after we cooked them up nice and soft, I did the majority of the milling.  I have to stand on a stool, so I have more leverage on the handle to squish all the apple meat out.  I also had lots of helpers for this part, for about 30 minutes until they got bored....

then they were more interested in doing this :

And finally yesterday I canned up the final batch of applesauce, and my shoulder can finally rest!