Fruit Week

Breakfast this morning.

I guess this week is fruit week for us.

On Monday, I was able to pick 40+ gallons of slightly (and completely) bruised or rotten apples for free.
Great, right?

Just what everyone wants for Christmas.
I ended up with a very very VERY full garbage can, some intensely excited chickens, and 5 gallons of actual usable apples.  We got four quarts of applesauce out of it.

Then, last night, I found a deal for free grapevines and fruit trees on Craigslist, so at 8:30 p.m., Michael and I went out to our backyard and plotted and dug some massive holes.  In the dark.

Michael and my dad picked them up before supper tonight, as our van is currently out of commission... (Next week it gets fixed! We've been budgeting for over 12 weeks for this one...I'm so excited.)

It's a dwarf Liberty apple tree; we couldn't fit much else.

Grape vines before trellising.

Apples from our very own apple tree.

Grape vines after trellising.  Edelweiss and Fredonia.

Then on this coming Saturday, we have plans to go over to a friend's house and glean pears, apples, and grapes from them.

I've been battling fruit flies like crazy in our kitchen, but thinking about homemade hot applesauce in the winter, I think they're really a small nuisance to bear.  I'm looking forward to potentially trying to juice the grapes we glean this weekend.

It could be a disaster.  We've never juiced grapes before, but it's always fun to try something new.


I do have some news about my wingback endeavors (or lack thereof.)  I'm thinking about sending the third chair to savers or goodwill and just looking for a free smaller chair that I can use the fabric on. (I have an inquiry in on a free one from Craigslist.) Something that just requires paint and sewing.  I enjoy upholstery, but at this point in my pregnancy, it's just not going to happen...and I don't want an unfinished project sitting in my kitchen and mocking me for the next....year.  I also think it would look a little odd to have three pieces of large-ish furniture that are the exact same piece of furniture in such close proximity to each other.  So there's that.  I'm likely a quitter.  But I'm giving myself grace.