Apples, apples, apples

And then some more apples! What to do? After the big batch of juice we made last week, I decided to make some apple sauce. That's not a big favorite of ours, but it's good to have some around. So this week S. picked all the apples from our Dolgo Crab Apple tree, and I made nine quarts of apple sauce from them. The first batch was way too thick, so the second and third batches had lots of water added to the apples in cooking. This made boiling the apples much easier--they didn't stick to the bottom of the kettle. It also made putting the boiled apples through the mill much easier. I froze this apple sauce, since I didn't want to spend the time canning them. And we've found this very acceptable.

Yesterday Jim said he had a lot of almost overripe apples that needed attention, so this morning S. prepared them all, and we steam juiced them: five more quarts of pure apple juice stored away for winter enjoyment.

Our string quartet is preparing to play for the Tyrell Museum's 25th anniversary celebration this coming Saturday. All the high-up "mucky-mucks" will be there, a very posh gathering. This is planned for the outdoor patio at the museum, so we are extremely grateful that the forecast for Saturday is sunny and warm: up to 21ºC. I think, just as insurance, I'll take along my black turtle neck tshirt and some long underwear, in case of a change in the weather. Also on the list to take along: lots of clothespins to keep our music on the music stand in case of wind.

Yesterday our cellist called around noon and said his brother had died that morning. His brother had been in the hospital since May, improving and relapsing, and now had passed away. We were very concerned, not just for his (our cellist's) loss, but also about the timing of the funeral. If it were scheduled for Saturday afternoon we'd be sunk! There's not way to find another cellist for a quartet on that short notice! But in the evening we received a call that the funeral will be after the weekend. Oh, we are grateful!