Making Applesauce

     Western New York is really into apples. They grow a lot of them and we found over 80 u-pick farms in our area that allow the general public to go and pick fresh produce through-out the season. We discovered an apple farm in October and drove up one Saturday afternoon.  Within a half hour the children picked about 50 pounds of apples- although it helped that some of these apples were almost 3 pounds each!  After making every apple recipe that I could find from fresh homemade muffins, to crumb cake to pie, we had to resort to applesauce to use all of the apples that we had picked.  It was a time-consuming process to locate all of our canning equipment in the moving boxes in our basement, but worth it in the end.  Michael and I made batch after batch of applesauce and stayed up until 2:00 a.m. or so on a weeknight, but we got it finished.  I love looking at the jars and jars of applesauce in my pantry.  This is a new annual tradition I think!  Now, if we could only get a salsa garden going again, but I don't know how to keep the deer and rabbits away.