When Life Gives You Apples

Our generous neighbor B gave us all the organic, unsprayed apples from her tree that we could pick. After we got home from raspberrying yesterday, we climbed ladders and D got on the roof and we filled bag after bag after box with apples. Some of them will go to the food bank when I work my shift there on Thursday, and I'll can some and freeze some.

But today I made pies. I found this little pocket pie mold from Williams Sonoma at a thrift store over the summer. It seemed like the pies looked better when I cut out the apple shapes and pressed them together by hand, sealing with fork tines, rather than using the press. Here it is (above) unbaked, with egg wash and sprinkled with turbinado sugar . . .

 . . . and here it is hot from the oven.

I made some little free-form apple galettes, just the right size for a lunchbox.

Some gallettes had blueberries, and I made a batch of pocket pies with a whole wheat crust.

And one full-size apple galette, with some of the raspberries we picked yesterday. I dropped some pies off as a thank you to our wonderful apple neighbors, we'll eat the raspberry version tonight, and the rest I'll freeze to pop into lunches. And now I really do have a lot of canning to do.

Raspberry Picking

On Saturday we drove to Hoot 'n Howl Farm, just outside of Boulder, to pick some raspberries.



The first week of school is always hard for me. I miss my little summer companion. It was nice to have her back all day long for the weekend.

I think D likes it too.

Western slope berries. And a kind dad, who says yes when his daughter says "Would you hold my pink bag for me?" That didn't stop me from making fun of him.





The farm is a wonderful place. It seems like such a labor of love. You can walk right out into the fields and pick, following the signs for which rows are open. Then you weigh your produce and pay for it on the honor system, putting cash into a little tin can. They had heirloom tomatoes and beautiful vegetables, apples and peaches for sale at their honor system farmstand. Now R knows where raspberries come from, and what hard, hot, thorny work it is to fill one of those little supermarket clamshells. And I have a lot of canning to do.

9th Birthday Party

It has been a long summer without my camera. Since my computer was out of commission for awhile too, there weren't any blog posts. The camera was expensive to fix, so I waited until I really needed it, for R's 9th birthday party. I'm so happy to have it back. It felt like one of my arms was missing.

We had her party at our neighborhood pool.


Suddenly the sky opened up, with rain and hail.




E caught a hailstone.


I captioned some of these pictures to send to family, but I forgot to save a version without captions.

That was a nice birthday memory--a rainbow just for R.

She wanted a wolf cake, with Oreo frosting. It was so much fun to make. She gets to keep the little wolf figurines and play with them. I bought the edible cupcake toppers on eBay.


Then the girls came back to our house for a slumber party. They are picking out books from the shelves D built for me, to hold my Dad's history scholar's library. R has commandeered some of the lower shelves for her own books.

Eleven girls in the basement!

Charlie wanted so badly to go downstairs. But he has a history of jumping on sleeping heads and licking faces.

Poor Charlie!

He got a lot of love in the morning.

The next morning, they opened presents and D made chocolate chip pancakes, the birthday girl's request.

D built this rope swing for R in the backyard. It swings you right into the bushes, and for some reason, every kid who comes over thinks that is just the most hysterically funny and entertaining thing.

It was fun to have a house full of girls for one night. You forget how little fourth graders are, until they are all swarming around you in the kitchen in their pj's, telling you exactly how much butter and salt they want on their own bag of popcorn. 

Rain Garden

A whole night and day of drenching rains, finally. Everything is perking up.

One of the front yard beds is looking better, thanks to my friend Tom and his gift of columbine and snapdragon yesterday. I got them planted just as the rain started falling. The little grassy things are thrift from Tom, I hope they take. Behind that is the pretty white flowers of bacopa, one perennial that came back for me this year. And way in the back, the Shasta daisies. I love the dark green foliage even before they bloom. These came from one seedling I started under lights indoors three years ago.

Charlie gets a wet head from the dripping bushes. Still a handsome gentleman.
Peas planted on St. Patrick's Day, loving the rain.

Magenta Swiss Chard.

Mesclun ready to be planted.

Charlie in the spot where he dug up all the grass. That stage didn't last very long, he is mostly a good dog now.

Georgia O'Keefe in the salad greens.

The dwarf blue spruce planted all around with purple alliums is my favorite thing in the backyard. I wish I could go back three owners ago and say thank you.

Allium and a peony bud in the back yard.
So many things bloomed this year that had been sulky or just absent in the four years we've lived in this house. I think it was the first year without a late killing freeze.

Tom's columbine. I always think of them as blue, I love this creamy color.

I have been planting out the winter sown milk jug seedlings. I'm following the instructions, we'll see if anything actually blooms. That will be another post.
Dandelion skeletons are lovely. I will still work to eradicate them.

Front yard peonies just ready to burst open.

Wild rosa eglantina by the front door. I wish whoever planted these could know how much they are appreciated years later. Who knows how old the gorgeous peony is, how many owners back it goes.

Buds on our Home Depot David Austin rose from last year. I have been fertilizing and watering and putting epsom salts and coffee grounds around all the roses, mostly out of shame for how I neglected them last summer.

April Rain Song 
by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.