Monday, September 24, 2018

Sauced!

The other week I was part of a major project involving ten bushels of apples.
I helped to get them thoroughly sauced!


A very generous soul (a friend of mine) donated the apples from his orchard of apple trees. He gave them to the church (of which his mother is a member) to be made into applesauce, and given to another local church that serves free community meals to the hungry.   I'm also a member of this church, so I decided to join in on this endeavor of turning the apples into applesauce.

We were told that the project would likely start as early as seven-thirty in the morning (aargh!).  I'll confess to you, Reader Dear, that I had to rush just to get there by nine-thirty. Though I contemplated stopping for a box of doughnuts en route to the church (thinking perhaps a dozen doughnuts would do) I decided I shouldn't add to my degree of lateness.

When I pulled into the church parking lot, I was amazed at the number of cars!  (A dozen doughnuts would most definitely not have sufficed!)  On my way into the building, I passed Steve, setting up a gas burner to handle one more pot full of apples.  Happily, the large cooking pot I had brought along was needed, and it was my pot that was set atop that burner.

Meanwhile, the kitchen of the church and all the rooms surrounding it were a beehive of activity! I joined right in with the cutting up of the apples.  Also happening was the washing of apples, the cooking of apples (involved much stirring of pots), the processing of apples by various methods (cranking, grinding) and the filling of jars and buckets.



 It was a thoroughly enjoyable endeavor, thoroughly saucing those apples!  There were many varieties, and I sampled one or two.  The one pictured here, I believe, is Molly's Darling.  (Viewer Dear, I could be quite wrong.  It may be Molly's Honey, or perhaps Molly's Sweetness or Molly's Sugarplum.  It may not be Molly's apple at all; few folks at this saucing were able to introduce me to the apples in a proper manner.)



The main group of saucers spent six hours working at this project.  The outcome:
One hundred and seventy quarts!



Each person volunteering was offered a quart of applesauce to carry home.

Plus, I carried away two large tubs of the leavings.























"Looking at it from an equine perspective," I suggested, "this rubbish will be a marvelous treat!"

The Yard Man's horses are not accustomed to getting dessert with their meals; they were a bit tentative at first, he reported, but then they expressed their pleasure by eating enthusiastically. They got one tray the first evening and another the next evening.  By the third evening, they were getting accustomed to having dessert with every meal.  The questioning looks on their faces nearly broke his heart, the Yard Man reported.*

*I'm veering into fiction**

**And, no, I am not sauced, Reader Dear,
just horsing around with this tale of apples, sauced!

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