Boy, did we ever labor!

Where do I even begin? There was so much going on today I could write several different posts. I was thankful for the long weekend for sure. After being in Kansas for a while, it was nice to get home and catch up on laundry, deep cleaning and rearranging my kitchen, and having a normal routine. Labor Day for us was a day of labor, not a day of relaxing and grilling food. We spent a good 11 hours of our day making organic, unsweetened apple sauce.

Ryan’s folks brought down buckets full of big apples. We peeled, cut, cored, cooked, and sauced apples. Then packed I don’t know how many quarts of sauce and put them in the hot water bath to seal them up. Right away one of the jars broke and we had sauce rolling up to the top of the pot and boiling over everywhere and we didn’t know where it came from. At that point, we decided to use only one of the pots - the one with the wire basket in it. We assumed that the broken jar was due to the lack of wire basket. Great, now we’re down to heating 7 quarts at a time and we have a lot to do. Oh well, we’ll make do with what we can. Especially if my kids are all being wonderfully behaved along with our neighbor boy. Two meals and around 53 quarts later, we even managed to freeze some green beans that Eunice brought from her garden. Our day long project made good use of our cutlery, my new Tupperware, my new canning equipment from my momma, the turkey fryer, the flat top stove and other items. It was a long day and the broken, three total which meant it wasn’t the lack of wire basket, jars weren’t the only bump in the road.

I recall having a conversation recently with someone who was talking about how everything was breaking recently. I was so thankful that even though we were facing a $500 repair on our van, not everything was breaking. So much for that thought. For some reason our jimmy-rigged sink decided to leak like a mad-man. Seriously, yesterday it was a bit of a problem and I suggested to my husband that we call a plumber. Today, towards the end of the day, it was no longer something that we could put a little band-aid over. We seriously need to get this fixed. For the second day in a row I’ve emptied the contents hiding below my sink and cleaned up the soaked wood. Now, we have a big problem, every bit of water that went down the sink came out where it shouldn’t have.

(my little princess is waiting for the worms to throw...)

(Like father like son!)

So with a sink and counter full of dishes, I couldn’t even begin to clean it up. Frustrated, and almost disgusted at leaving the filth on the counter, I put the beans in the freezer, emptied the bucket under the sink, grabbed my toothbrush and began my nightly routine. Here I sit in my bed typing on the keys knowing that not only did my kitchen not get cleaned and things put back in order, but I allowed my frustration also prevent me from folding the two loads of laundry sitting in my living room. It’s been a long day, I have lots of apple sauce to feed my growing brood, and my feet are super happy that I’m no longer standing!
(Grandpa's 1st time making applesauce... bonus was grandbabies helped him)

*** Added to say that my thoughtful in-laws just called. With the recent downpour of rain (which held off while the guys were out cutting and cooking the remainder of the apples), my in-laws plans for tomorrow were rained out. They called to offer to come down to fix the sink and then to freeze the 80 or so cups of apple sauce that were put in the fridge. With a short and busy week ahead, I’m super thankful that M&E will lighten the load on our shoulders.