As summer slips away we are enjoying cooler nights, crisper mornings but warm sunny days. This pleases me as I am in no hurry for summer to end. I had to get jeans and a sweatshirt out last weekend, but I wasn’t happy about it. Signs of the season change are all around us: leaves changing colour and falling, pumpkins in the fields and road side stands and of course Halloween madness in the stores. It is also apple picking time.
Last year we picked apples with my parents at an orchard a fair way out of town. It was a pleasant drive and we came home with bags of Lobos. This year we chose an orchard closer to town so the group of four could all pick together. Macintosh and Empire were available . Everyone took a quarter bushel basket but I soon realised that I didn’t actually want that many apples!
On arriving home I filled the fruit bowl and made some apple sauce for supper but we hardly made a dent in the load. Apple crumble, apple pies and more apple sauce are all in the plan for the next week and of course morning, afternoon and bedtime snacks are covered also. I have never dried apples but I might look into how to go about it.
Sentient 
Oh, you are good. How do you do this so promptly. I can only aspire to the technical capabilities of my dear techie friend.
I’ll bring my camera and download photos of your family on your computer tomorrow…that’s it…that’s what I can do…!
Sounds great!
But no chutney this time?
Perhaps there is still some from last year’s production line.
ND
There was actually chutney making this year, a few weeks ago when I bought a basket of beautiful tomatoes. Unfortunately it did not go as smoothly as last year. I had some helpers getting it into the pot and it bubbled quite happily all day. I repeatedly forgot it was there, only to be reminded by the aroma each time I came near the kitchen. Late afternoon I came in to find the aroma had changed and it was burning on the bottom of the stock pot.
I removed it all, washed the stock pot, being careful not to scratch the surface and then returned the chutney to the pot to finish. At about 10:30 at night it reached the right thickness and I proceeded to put it in jars. I was nearly finished when I took a jar off the cooling rack. This left three full jars at the other end, which tipped the rack and they all fell off the rack on to the floor, breaking on impact. So it was 11:00 by this time, I had chutney and glass on the floor and wasn’t enjoying the experience anymore. I continued to finish putting the chutney in jars stepping back and forth over the mess to do so. When I finished I cleaned up the mess and went to bed.
So, yes, there is chutney!