Harvest Kitchen

Each year I resist the temptation to dive into preserving, much like beginning the gardening season - it takes time for me to say yes and begin. But then all of the sudden the garden is 50 x 70 feet and the kitchen at harvest time is filled with apples, granola, bread rising and soups simmering... I have yet to figure out my trigger to begin or why it takes such effort (maybe lack of sleep due to a co sleeping one year old? Hm...) but once I am in the midst of it, I love that hum of productivity. This week the kitchen has seen mint gathered from the garden and made into wine, more herbs from the garden crushed to tea, applesauce, apple butter, cranberry preserves, borscht and squash soups being made and frozen... It is a flurry of activity only made possible by the many interruptions and many little hands in the mix.
Magnus loves being in the kitchen now digging through the spice drawer or playing with containers while I create around him as long as I give him jobs to do (like bob for apples!) and apple sauce and apple butter to taste.

 Kasper's home days are filled with him and I peeling apples outside together while Mags sleeps, hiking to pick apples, cranberries and rose hips or making cakes and pies...

 We were grateful to borrow our friends' apple press this year and put all the apples here on the farm to good use. The trees in both orchards produce a lot and this year was a particularly good year. A few wheelbarrow loads were brought in on Saturday and the yard filled with happy children (and bees!) drinking the sweet nectar.

 I am so thankful for those days when we can be together as a family, outside and productive... That feels good.