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.