CIDER!

I figured that since it's been a while, I should probably start with the oldest event first.

Apple cider. A Stahr tradition started - in our little family, three years ago when Andrew brought home an antique cider press. We've made mostly delicious cider ever since. (I say mostly, because last years cider was a little off... This year, we've outdone ourselves in deliciousness.)

The cider day dawned crisp and cloudy. Andrew and Savannah were outside by 8:30, getting the press all prepped for the pressing of 1600 lbs of apples. (Yes, you did read that right.) One Thousand, Six Hundred fantastic pounds of apples. In all shapes and colors and varieties. As I got some breakfast ready, Andrew and Savannah pressed some apples for breakfast beverage. They brought the first gallon in at 9:30 am. It was gone by 9:45 am.

This year, for the first time, Savannah was old enough to be pulled from "DUNK DUTY" and became a CRANKER. Andrew was Press Slave - once again.

LeGrand and Margaret were bucket fillers... a fun job when you get to go diving for apples in the massive bins! Sometimes, all we saw was this:

And then, he came up for air, and we saw THIS:

We pressed a grand total of 97 gallons of apple cider. It was a glorious day. Our freezer is now full.

Cider for sale: $8 per gallon. Shipping is extra.

The Law of the Harvest

"That which ye sow, that shall ye also reap."

Three years ago, the Stahr family planted a garden. We included corn, peas, beans, and something else that I can't remember because it was three years ago. I'm lucky I remember today! Our corn blew over in the wind, the peas didn't really grow, and the beans were thin - at best. Not to mention the deer. They ate what we didn't pick as soon as it made a showing. We vowed we weren't going to plant another garden until we had a fence up. And so, we didn't.

This year, Andrew put up a fence made of fishing line. I will admit that I was extremely skeptical and kept hinting that we do something different. The fence was wonderful! We didn't have a single deer in our garden, and it flourished. Not because of the fence, I'm sure - although the fence certainly kept critters at bay!

In our garden, we planted corn. We planted pumpkins. We planted beans, peas, onions, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, three different types of peppers, and the weeds came on their own. That was the upper garden. In the lower garden, we planted tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, and more peppers.

Fast forward to the end of summer... Our broccoli died. Our cauliflower died. Our zucchini is JUST NOW getting zucchini (just in time for the first frost! How fantastic!) The weeds did fabulously. The corn blew over - but not until we had already harvested most of it and canned a lot of it. And when I say a lot, I mean 40 quarts. The onions didn't do very well, but that's o.k. Our potatoes harvested out two 5-gallon buckets full of the largest potatoes I have ever seen. Our beans didn't get picked except for dinners a couple of times. We just ate the 12 carrots that we grew (we started with two rows, and they just didn't grow... Tonight, we picked 43 sugar pumpkins, and the children grew 3 carving pumpkins each - we had 4 giant jack-o-lantern pumpkins volunteer themselves by our burn pile to the side of the house. We picked more gallons of tomatoes than I can count. We've picked a peck of peppers to pickle - and there are still peppers left to pick. We pickled 3 gallons of dill pickles.

In the last three months (because we started in August...) we have canned the following:

41 pints of blackberry jam.

11 pints of gooseberry jam.

50 quarts of applesauce. (spiced and plain with a little sugar)

97 gallons of apple cider.

38 quarts of white grape juice.

23 quarts of peaches.

7 quarts peach pie filling.

9 pints triple berry jam.

5 quarts pickled tomatoes.

40 quarts tomato juice.

12 pints tomato basil sauce.

11 quarts spaghetti sauce.

20 pints pizza sauce.

5 pints, 6 quarts pickled peppers.

40 quarts frozen corn.

11 quarts southwestern salsa.

9 pints corn salsa.

11 pints sweet pickle relish.

15 pints, 8 half pints dill pickle relish.

And we pick up between 15 and 18 farm fresh eggs daily.

We have literally filled every. single. one. of our quart jars. And we still have pumpkin to do. And red grape juice. And I forgot to count the quart of dried tomatoes that I put into the freezer.

So... if there is a food emergency on the planet somewhere, and grocery stores are all sold out of things that are yummy to eat, you're all invited to dinner. We can eat some of the meat stored in our freezer and grind wheat to make bread. We'll have to use rocks, because we don't have a wheat grinder, but... at least we won't starve to death!

What a Corny Festival!

So Andrew was cleaning off the driveway Saturday morning, when some friends of ours pulled up and asked if we were going to the Aumsville, OR Corn Festival. They have a parade, and everything. We didn't know anything about this festival, and it honestly sounded (pardon the pun) Corny. Until, that is, we found out that part of the festival involves selling corn for $1 per bag of 10 ears. Not wanting to pass THAT opportunity up, I changed my clothes, loaded the children into the truck, and Andrew and I headed to Aumsville. Once we got there, we found out that we were only allowed to purchase 5 bags per person. SO... we recruited the same people who told us about the festival to stand in line with us and purchase another 5 bags for us (they will likely NEVER tell us about another festival that involves purchasing produce cheaply again...). We ended up buying 35 bags of corn. (5 for Andrew, 5 for Me, 5 for LeGrand (apparently it doesn't matter HOW old you are, if you're in line, you qualify for 5 bags of corn...), 5 for Savannah, 5 for Margaret, 5 for Albert (who is cursing the day he told us about the corn...) and 5 for Dave (who is echoing the curses of his son, Albert...)) THEN, Margaret and I stood guard while Andrew, Savannah, Albert, Dave and Tami (Dave's wife - who was recruited by her husband) transported the corn back to the truck.

And then the fun began... Margaret loves to help get the green off the corn... mostly because she really wants to EAT the corn.

Not wanting to be outdone, Savannah joined in the fun! In the meantime, Andrew cut all the corn off the cob after it was blanched, and packaged it into bags. We currently have just over 40 bags of corn in our freezer. Most Sundays we would be napping or doing something else... this particular one we chose to have a family gathering (After the blessing), and then work on our food storage... we might be a little crazy, or maybe it's just that our family is a little corny...