The hardest thing...

I know I said I was going to talk about apples again but this has been weighing on me this week and I just need to get it out - we'll do apples again next time!

I have a friend right now who feels like she is going through the hardest thing she will ever have to do, a bad break up with a long term lover, her only car key broke off in the car lock, and she has been displaced from her home.  All of these are hard things, but she is a teenager, and they all happened to her in the space of about a month.  And she lost her father a few years ago.  She is feeling like she would not like to be part of the planet any longer since it is too hard right now.  That got me really thinking about what is too hard?  What have I done that I thought was the hardest thing I would ever do and then learned that it WAS NOT the hardest thing by a long stretch!

What do I say to someone who thinks this is the hardest thing she will ever have to live through and she doesn't think she will make it?  What would you say?

I had to stay at a college I hated as a teen and finish out the school year (thought that was hard but I was young and dumb remember).  Another time, I gave birth to an early baby and thought childbirth and parenting was the hardest thing I would ever have to do (it is hard but worth it), but my two biggest, hardest things so far have been the time that I lost a child (as in death), and the time that I had to hand my child to a surgeons hands and say to him "I trust you with my childs life"!  And I signed a paper saying that I trust him!  I also have seen a friend lose their child and I am sure that it was the hardest thing she has ever done to get up every morning and go forward with faith.

I have another friend who lost their child to death today, but the child was lost to drugs long ago.  Is that the hardest thing to watch your child slip away to that world and you can't pull them back?  I don't know but I hope she is able to go forward with faith anyway and survive that.

My best friend lost her husband this year to cancer and I know that I have never done anything that hard.  My heart breaks for her every day when I think of the faith she carries every day when I know she doesn't want to.

I have more than one job, and that is not too hard when I think of the things I have done that I really thought I would not survive, or that my child would not survive.  Or of all of the things that my friends have survived that are harder than anything I do any time.

But what do I say to the girl who sees no light at the end of her tunnel and grease at the end of her rope with a flaming pool under it?  She has no comprehension that this might not be the hardest thing she will ever have to do and I'm not going to be the one to break that news to her.

She is getting help, don't worry - I'm not letting her flail about and figure it out.  She has a good support system in place and she will make it!  I have faith!

I want you to think about the hardest thing you have ever had to do, and then look around you and see if it's not a lot easier than what someone else has had to do.  If it's not - I am sorry.  If it is - go out and do something nice for the person who's got it harder than you! 

Blessed Samhain!

Alaskan Apples - What to do with them!

 

 Crab apples being prepped for the juicer above, and apple pieces in the juicer below.

 

Im my previous post I talked about some of the great varieties of apple that wil thrive in Alaska and preserving the harvesting heritage.  Now we're going to talk about some of the great things you can do with these apples!  Crabapple jelly is by far one of the favorite uses of crabapples here at Wicked Raven.  The jelly is a clear rosy color and has enough natural pectin that none has to be added and it still makes a "stacking" jam!  That means that you can stack it up on whatever you're making and it stays there!  It makes a great gift jelly in a pretty jar with a bread mix (Ill help you with that one in a later post).

 

The juicing process takes just about all day with a stove top juicer and Im sure you could speed it up somehow but I like having the process going on in the kitchen while I sew, clean, prep menus, or any number of other things that two job hockey mom  hobby farmers never seem to catch up on.  It also makes your house smell great!  Whats not to love.

 

This batch of apples (about 3 gallons whole) produced about 16 cups of juice and I used all but four of that to make jelly.  The other four cups we added one cup of sugar (you could probably use less or use liquid stevia too), chilled it for about two hours and the kids drank it with dinner!  So good and so full of natural vitamins.

 

Best Crabapple Jelly

 

4 Cups Crabapple juice

4 Cups Sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)

 

Using a large saucepot, bring all ingredients to a boil over high heat stirring constantly.  Cook to gelling point (when you drip some on the spoon rest, then tip the rest it moves slowly or not at all).  Skim foam if necessary and ladle into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch of space.  Place two-piece caps on and process in a hot water bath for ten minutes or use the quick turn method to seal.  (see below for directions)

 

Starting the Crabapple Jelly

The quick turn method to seal jars is a simple way to seal your jelly without a water bath.  You cannot use this method for everything - I only use this for jelly.

 

Once your hot jelly is in the hot jars, adjust the two piece caps and tighten them down.  Turn the closed jars upside down and set your timer for five minutes. 

When the five minutes is up turn the jars right side up using a quick turn or flip.

Let jars sit and you will soon begin to hear them seal - some go fast and some go slow but I have never had a jar not seal unless I had a glob of jelly on the rim that I missed wiping off!  Good eating!

This is a great way to keep your jars hot while your product finishes.  Put the clean jars in the oven on warm while you finish the product and you won't have to worry about them being hot enough!

Blessed Be and Happy Harvest Time!

 

Tune in to the next post for Easy Spiced Apples!

 

Apples from Alaska!

This post also falls under gardening with your kids!  The apples below are on a tree at Snowfire Gardens (see my links for more information) and we have so much fun every year rounding up all the kids (even the grown ones) and doing harvest at Nana and Boopah's house (or Gramma and Grandpa as you may call yours)!

This tree is a Carroll apple and it produced that whole blue bushel tub full of apples - good eating apples too! Even in this crappy weather we had all summer here in Alaska the orchard had a banner year. My parents do have a ten foot tall fence to keep out the moose riff raff so their trees dont get trimmed the way ours at Wicked Raven do. There are a total of four families and includes six grand kids - four boys and two girls who come together at least one day a year and do a family harvest day at Snowfire. It is a great family bonding time as well as teaching too. This year besides apples we dug potatoes, dahlia bulbs, and harvested two kinds of Kale.

 Above Nana, Raeley and Devin harvest two kinds of potatoes, below, before the wash cycle!

With all the rain we had here in the Matanuska Valley the potatoes were a little harder to harvest - soil was very wet and heavy!  Lucky we have some strong youngsters (and energetic adults) to help!  Two of the kids didn't get to come to harvest day this year and boy were they salty pretzles about it!  The only saving grace was that we chose a sunny day - one of very few we had all summer!

 

The above is Kim picking from an apple-crab tree and we got another bushel from this tree.  This is a great way to teach the kids where their food comes from, how to take care of it (you absolutely cannot just drop apples into a bucket), and how long some things take to grow.  This orchard has been growing for about 12 years, and there are about 15 varieties of apple and apple crab trees.  Check the web site in the summer at www.snowfiregardens.com for garden tour schedule if you would like to see the orchards and gardens.  Its worth it!

Here at Wicked Raven Farm we have 7 varieties of apple and crabapple trees.  We have had only one tree produce thus far, however our orchard is only about three years old and regularly gets trimmed by a momma moose who comes with her calf each year.  We also have two varieties of grapes (yes they will grow here) and we have 3 varieties of cherry trees and we had enough for a pie last year!

Tune in to the next blog to see some of the fun things we do with apples!  Yum!

Here comes the Sun-Gold

We love SunGold!  The round yellow orbs in top picture are ripe Sungold tomatoes mixed in with Brandy Boy (the wrinkly ones - its not market pretty but it is so so tasty - one for another blog).  They are also mixed with a few red hybrid grape tomatoes as well.  We grew Sungold for the first time last year as a trial - Reeds choice.  They are a winner!  We call them tomato candy.  They are so sweet, but still have such tomato flavor.  We have used them for all kinds of recipes, (see salsa recipe below) but we are lucky if they make it into the house (they get eaten on the way).  As you can tell by the bottom two pictures, they are a very indeterminate plant and the tomatoes grow like grapes on the vines.  These have had the leaves thinned out so any sun we do get will ripen tomatoes and not produce leaves!  The bowl on the top picture is the 5th of its kind filled mostly with Sun Gold for this growing season, and if the Goddess is good to me that is only about one tenth of what are on the vine in the greenhouse.  It just has to not get 20 below in the next month and we will be able to harvest all.  All of these pictures were taken today so you can see that we are still rockin in the greenhouse with the tomatoes.

Sun Gold tomatoes are a treat to grow - very low maintenance, they expect to be watered plenty but they dont fuss if they dont get that.  They arent sensitive to wide temperature changes like some of the other plants, even to as low as 36 degrees and as high as 90.  They dont mind a sweaty greenhouse and they dont mildew easily.  They seem very non-susceptible to blights and mildews or other tomato diseases and white flies dont bother them at all.  The worst quality I have to name about these plants is that they get so tall and lanky and produce at the top that I have to use a ladder often to pick them.

If you leave them on the vine for too long they will split, but I have had a vine of them break off and they ripened in my bowl in the window beautifully!  I have 4 Sun Gold plants in my mix. They freeze beautifully and they can without losing all of their color. Pick early and often and enjoy!

Sun Gold Salsa

12 oz. Ripe Sun Gold Tomatoes cut in fourths (or however many you want to use)
1/2 onion diced finely
1 orange and 1 yellow pepper diced finely
1 small bunch cilantro finely chopped
1 tabasco pepper (if you like hot - leave out if not) pureed
1 small bunch fresh parsley finely chopped
pinch of salt

If you dont have a tabasco pepper, use a dash of Franks or Tabasco sauce.

Mix all together in a non metal bowl and enjoy with whatever you like salsa with.  We have made this into Salmon dip by adding 1 can salmon and 8oz. creme cheese!  Yum!