A Bountiful Year for Apples

Last spring's dreary, rainy weather coupled with concerns about the bee population caused many of us to worry that this would be a poor year for apples. And even though Bert and I only have a half dozen trees, we too, worried. Not to fear! It's been an incredible crop!

Now, what to do with the most - and best - apples our trees have ever produced. We have an antique cider press and - with help - we've turned out gallons and gallons of excellent cider. But, we've run out of steam and containers! There's a ton of applesauce in the freezer, bags and bags of apple slices, leftover apple butter from other years... oh, my! Hmmmm, I haven't made apple leather in a long time and the recipe IS in The Frugal Family Kitchen Book! Needless to say, these apples have become the zuccini of this year's harvest and we're foisting them off onto anyone we can!

I really wish we knew how to winter-keep them, and we do plan to try. We have a root cellar but this fall has been so warm that it's not down to good keeping temperatures yet. Still, we have a number of small buckets for storing apples, some wrapped in newspaper, some in straw, some in sawdust or shavings, all methods recommended by this expert or that.

Do you have any suggestions either for different ways to use yet more apples or how best to winter-keep them? I'd love to hear from you...

Mary