Sylvia's Scenario

I know a lot of states are starting to open up since the coronavirus is slowing down and we are too... slowly.  This week, dentists started working again and so are some doctor's offices but not restaurants, hair salons, or nonessential stores. Mostly everyone is still staying home.  It's so boring.  Bruce went golfing twice since golf courses opened up a couple weeks ago.  With the weather getting so nice, it's hard to stay home.  The city is trying to discourage people from going to parks by taping off play equipment, picnic tables and closing all parking lots, thus avoiding overcrowding.  Bruce and Lauren have been going to Alki beach to jog on Sundays and then I'll walk along the path while they run but it is so crowded!  I wear my mask because even though it's outside, it's hard to keep distance from people.  It's almost easier to just stay home than to try to go out in public and deal with all the issues.  Since we're h...

We finished canning our first batch of plums on Sunday so we are moving right along with preserving our harvest this year.   Any that we do now will be extra since we have a little bit of everything;  applesauce ,   apple butter ,   tomatoes  and now  plums .  The supply seems endless so we just preserve as much as time allows.                                  It's almost as fun to pick them as it is to eat them. Time to do more canning. And there are more to pick. so we just keep picking. I keep a bowl of apples in the refrigerator just for munching and the rest get turned into applesauce. It's like having our own little Garden of Eden.

With tomato season in full force, we are working hard to eat up our tomatoes.  I canned a few more quarts of tomatoes as we made a batch of  apple butter  last weekend. As you can see, some of the apple butter will be holiday gifts. Apple butter is such an old fashioned-type food so a lot of people are thrilled to get it.   Have you ever bought apple butter at the store?  Exactly.  Sometimes I'll just take some over to people's house when I visit with a loaf of Old Fashioned White bread  from  Great Harvest Bakery  which is the perfect match for our apple butter.  We couldn't let our canning season go by without making more apple butter.  I also couldn't let all these tomatoes go into quart jars without making some spaghetti sauce so last weekend we had spaghetti with homemade spaghetti sauce.  I love fall! I thought this would be a good first dinner for my sister-in-law who was driving here from Montana o...