A Rainy Saturday

I would dearly love to quit celebrating every measurable rain because it’s such an unusual thing, but that’s where we are.  Saturday brought a most of the day rain event.

The last rain took us out of moderate drought and put us back into abnormally dry.  Hopefully, the rain we got on Saturday will keep us there.

It really was  an all day event.  By 8:30 in the morning, the dark clouds were here.

Shortly after that, the rain started and brought the goats back up from pasture.

Brigit and Hera

They did get to go out a bit later, but it rained more.  I am grateful for all the rain we did get. (Edit) When it was all done, we had just under an inch.

Pretzel trying to sneak into the barn; don’t worry. She made it.

Since it was raining, I decided it was a perfect day to clear the counter of tomatoes…again.

What was left (and a layer in the box) after another batch of sauce this week.

I did more quarts of cold pack tomatoes and more quarts of juice.

I’m thinking I might still try to sneak in a batch of taco sauce.

The last few tomatoes wouldn’t fit in my pan to make juice.

I’d have to go pick more tomatoes, and I’m not sure what’s left, so we’ll see.

Pressing Apples

Saturday my family got together (they started while I was taking goats to the sale barn) and pressed apples.

I think there were about fifty buckets of apples.  By the time I arrived, they had a nice assembly line going.

It started with washing the apples.

My Mom

The little farm had was a good help with that.

Little Farm Hand

Then the apples were cut into quarters.

My sister, niece-in-law, and nephew

After that, they got poured into the press.

My dad, son holding the little farm hand and my nephew

You use a drill to turn the mechanism that chops the apples into smaller pieces.

My nephew

Then the lid is put on it, and it gets pressed.  They keep turning it and forcing more and more of the juice out.

My dad and son

It comes out the bottom and gets collected.

Once it goes into the house, it gets pasteurized.

Then it can be put in containers.

I think they said the final total was about thirty-five gallons of apple juice.

A Mad Dash

I am in a mad dash to get as much done as I can before returning to teaching for the fall.  That means garden stuff.

Potatoes right after digging them

So far, mom has helped me make French fries.

dehydrated tomatoes

Dairy stuff.

I’m playing with mozzarella slices!

I might not have planned this quite right, but it worked.

still restocking soaps

Goat stuff.

I just did another round of copper.

Wanda–I made her toe bleed when I was trimming hooves. 😦

And just everything else.  I might be ready to go back so I can sit down.  Not really, but I do start back to work tomorrow.