2 moms, 9 kids, 342 pounds of apples and 120 quarts of apple sauce

And an all day into-the-night experience. When I told my kids "just keep picking" until all the 5 gallon buckets, laundry baskets, boxes and bags in the Expedition were full, I proved just how truly terrible my spacial reasoning /eye balling measurement skills are. I was just hoping that I had enough to make the applesauce experience worthwhile like it was last year - how could I be expected to remember what the 215 pounds of apples we had last year looked like? Well, I can tell you that it couldn't have looked anything like that pile of apples I hauled in, because we had 342 pounds....hello!! We pulled in the Rickel's driveway at 10 am and left at 2am; 120 quarts of applesauce later.

The kids pared apples for 8 hours!!


NO wonder they look psychopathic here.


At 6pm, when it looked like this, I knew it was trouble - we had two ovens and 2 roasters baking apples so that we could run them through the mill; 2 large pots of cooking applesauce on the stove; 2 cannisters of canned applesauce processing (with 7 quarts in each); and all those apples UNcooked on the counter - still needing to be cooked in the roasters/oven. It was bad - very bad. About that time, I started apologizing for my over-zealous, apple picking episode.

The really crazy thing is - I don't even like applesauce, in fact, it grosses me out. BUT 4 people in my family do LOVE it and that makes up for it, I guess. And that's just the kind of self-sacrificing mother that I am. It had nothing to do with the fact that I am just a little bit social and spending all day with some of my favorite people sounded like a party to me, and I can't stand to miss a party - no, it had nothing to do with that - it was all a sacrificial, giving kind of thing on my part.
I don't think anyone will let me pick the apples next year (or any year after) without some very strict guidelines and supervision.