Homestead Happenings

Well, we have a cider press now, but the apple grinder has been delayed and won't be delivered until tomorrow.  We have five emptied and cleaned milk jugs waiting, and figure a good deal of what we squeeze into juice is going to go into the deep freezer.

The windfall apples have slowed down (either that or the local bunnies are eating the whole apples, which is actually possible given how little remaining I've found of some) but there are still tons on the trees.

Meantime, I'm drowning in quince!  I did a morning cleanup under the tree yesterday, and brought in about a dozen.  My afternoon cleanup netted another seventeen!  I mean, I cooked eight or so into poached quince for dinner Sunday (to go with lamb-garlic sausages, and zucchini sauteed with matchsticked elephant garlic, seasoned with salt-pepper-oregano-pepper flakes-cinnamon), but I seriously, seriously need to start turning them into preserves.  My big harvest basket is heaped full.

(ETA: Have now made a batch of quince jam. Need to make much more.)

I also started a quart and a half-gallon of red cabbage apple ginger sauerkraut fermenting out in the garage.  I discovered that Wilco carries actual fermentation crocks, but for all the parts, they range from $65 (2-gallon) to $130 (5-gallon) apiece.  Which... they're tempting, but.  The only things I really ferment are sauerkraut and pickles, and I can do those in canning jars.  I have about six or seven sets of weights and fermentation lock lids.  (I just need to keep my eye open for more half-gallon canning jars.)

And the reason we were at Wilco was to get wellies for Wonderful Husband and myself, so we could try the classic Pacific NorthWest hobby of clamming.  Which we did.  Except... the two closest clamming beaches are inaccessible, and when we got to the slightly farther away one, about half an hour past lowest tide, very little of the area clams would be was above the water.  So I went back and studied the tide charts, and realized that the low low tides for the next couple months are... at night.  Well.  That puts that plan back on the drawing board!

Yesterday, I ran to IKEA to return a drawer organizer which just didn't fit our kitchen drawers, and pick up some more shelves for the bookcases.  Then I met up with my sister and Niecelet and went thrift storing down in Lacey.  One shirt and two pants for Jazzy, who will now only wear knits, not woven stuff, a scarf and a hat for Squiddle, who has been complaining at the bus stop that he is cold even in his coat, and two pairs of jeans (one of mine died the death over the weekend) and three shirts for me.  And today, after an appointment, we hit up Goodwill, where I found a shirt apiece for the boys and a very nice almost complete celestial cross-stitch piece.

The Boys Discover Their Parents' Anime Collection

Wonderful Husband bolted the new media storage cabinet to the wall on Sunday, so I dragged out our boxes of DVDs and Blu-rays and began to fill it.

Problem: we have four boxes.  It will only fit about three.

A lot of this problem, of course, is predicated on the fact that we have several anime series, which take anywhere from four to twelve DVDs each.  So we've agreed that we need to winnow out some which are not our favorites, and for some of the must-keep series, see if they've been re-released in more compact forms.  Spend more money to save space, I guess.

But this afternoon, Squiddle pulls a DVD out of box four and shows it to me.  "Can we watch this now?"

It is Princess Tutu.  Of which he has only ever seen the (AWESOME!) "Håll om mig nu" AMV.

Wonderful Husband and I each independently give consent, and, well... my boys are now watching their first non-Ghibli anime.  And it's a good one.

(And, hmm, the whole series is now available as one single Blu-ray instead of six DVDs.  Step one to a less bulky anime collection!)

Quince and Auction Finds

Well, the quince pie I tried making was... not quite a disaster, but let's just say that better than half of it ended up in the bin.  The membrillo, on the other hand, turned out quite well.  There's just rather a lot of it.  Well, let's call it a year's supply....  Next I'm going to try a couple recipes from Food in Jars and see how they come out.

Yesterday, despite (still) being sick, I went to the monthly Stokes Auction again.  A lot of the stuff I bid on or wanted to bid on went for more than I wanted to pay, but I did get two things:

A bunch of pots, for all those strawberry runners I keep rooting.  Seriously, I bought two plants and now I have upward of twenty!  And for future patio plant needs.  A lady standing next to me asked if I wanted the piece of pottery painted with a dragon in the rightmost carton.  I didn't particularly, so she gave me a couple dollars for it and said she planned to hide it in a park for kids to find.  $39.

I also got another sofa.  Much smaller than the last one I bought, this actually fit inside my Fit!  But it's sturdy and comfy and I've vacuumed it thoroughly, washed the cushion cover, and reassembled it.  Interestingly, it has four rings on the sides of the cushion cover, and four elasticated hooks on the base, so the cushion hooks in and isn't going anywhere.  And the best part?  It cost $17.  So now there's something in the living room that Wonderful Husband and I can sit on to watch TV.  And the folding metal chairs can go out to the garage.

Sunday, Sunday....

Yesterday we went to the cider pressing event that was part of the second day of the Key Peninsula Farm Tour!  In doing so we found a new to us local park, and ended up meeting one of Squiddle's friends from the schoolbus.  We took a box and the large harvest basket I use, both full of apples.  For $25 we washed them, tossed them into what Wonderful Husband called "an apple chipper," and then got to crank them through the press.  I'd brought four jugs - we only ended up needing three.  But out of it we got two and a third gallons of fresh-pressed cider which Squiddle has declared is more delicious than our regular apple juice.  Win!

(I think we will eventually get our own press. And figure out a grinder.)

We also took the boys to get their flu shots (Wonderful Husband and I got ours a week or two ago, but Walgreens apparently doesn't offer shots for kids; fortunately Rite Aid does).  Both boys were pacified by the bribe of a lollipop.  And then we went to Home Depot and investigated riding lawn mowers. ^_^

Pear... or Quince?

Next to the two 30' apple trees, there stands a small (6-8'?) pear tree.  Or, at least, I thought it was a pear tree....

I've had one sitting on the counter, ripening, for about a week.  Today I tried a bite out of it.  Firm as a rock still, and not wholly inedible, but... I'm wondering if it's maybe a quince?  The fruit are bright yellow, very bulbous, but still have a small neck as pears do.  They're also covered in a light layer of grayish fuzz while on the tree.  Unfortunately, googling for ways to tell pears from quinces is useless, as they're more or less sister species.

I suppose I'll pull the others out of the box-and-basket of apples for the cider press event tomorrow, and see how they cook up.

Misc Bits

Ugh.  I woke up this morning with a stomach bug.  Not fun!  And not good timing, since today I was going to pick up Squiddle from school, pick up our co-op order, take Squiddle to the library, and then go to the quilt guild tonight.  None of which happened.  Fortunately Wonderful Husband was able to take care of picking up Squiddle and our co-op order.

Here are a few of the photos from my phone I keep meaning to put up on the blog.  First, the rainbow cupcakes I took into Squiddle's school for his birthday last month:

And our two apple trees.  This is the view out of my bedroom window, on the second floor of the house:

And a basket of bounty. The two trees are two different varieties, though I don't know what they are:

A patch I sewed on the tear on the back of our $35 auction sofa.  Had to find my curved needles to do this!  Eventually I'll reupholster it, but the sofa cleaned up pretty well for the most part, so it's a very low priority.

And about two-thirds of the scrappy Double Irish Chain quilt as I was laying it out on the floor to sew up over the weekend:

Grey Gables Update

All of a sudden fall has descended upon Gig Harbor!  It's cold in the morning and at night, though it does warm up into the 60s during the day.  Consequently, I'm thinking about flannel rag quilts for bundling up in.  (And... not thinking quite as much as I should be about the Double Irish Chain quilt top I just finished.)

Over the weekend I helped Wonderful Husband build a couple of shelving units, and then took it upon myself to finish organizing the garage.  My fabric stash is now somewhat more accessible!  And, more importantly, the boxes are all arranged in two aisles, with all their labels facing outward, so as time goes on and we continue to move in, we'll be able to find and unbox things more easily.

As part of that organizing process, I also spent part of today working on Squiddle's room.  And got it all done! I moved his dresser and laundry hamper moved into his (walk-in) closet, unboxed and sorted the three boxes of his and Jazzy's clothing, moved the box of mostly stuffed toys into the workroom, and switched out his and Jazzy's summer clothing for cool-weather clothing.  (All the while muttering "Uncle Knicknack's summer wardrobe. Uncle Knicknack's winter wardrobe. Uncle Knicknack.")  And I put clean sheets on both boys' beds, and tonight they get baths and clean PJs.  Jazzy's room still needs some organization, but Squiddle's is done until we paint it.  (Knowing Squiddle, he will want it painted pink.)

I'm on like the fourth huge basket of apples from the two trees (one basket each given away to two of our neighbors who don't have apple trees, and some to my sister) with no end in sight.  I've been looking up long-term storage techniques, and, of course, cooking them to make applesauce, apple crisp, apple pie....  Squiddle had an apple festival at school last week, and he loveslovesloves using the apple peeler.  Meantime, there is a farm tour and cider pressing event this weekend, so I'm kind of looking at apple presses on Amazon to get one for our own use.  I've also signed us up for the co-op the local farms run, and will be picking up our first order tomorrow, at the community center near Squiddle's school.  Which has weekly roller skates, among other things!