Clean up! Clean up! Everybody, Everywhere!!!!

You know something isn't right when you've got a hot chocolate mug in the middle of something rather mechanical looking....

Today we spent the afternoon cleaning out 'winter' from the apple shed.  We are expecting a fieldtrip of teens this next week that are taking a horticulture class at the community college during the summer and they want to see what happens at our place.  I promised them that there wasn't a lot to see since there wasn't anything but a bunch of little apples hanging around in the trees.  They were still OK with that.  Which was fine with me, since it got a nice little fire burning under our feathers to get us moving early on our list of chores before apple season!

The challenge of the day was to move the snowmobile from the apple shed, to the trailer.  After it was loaded on the trailer we needed to move it to the machine shed on the north side of the farm.  Easy peasy lemon squeazy, right?  Wrong!  We live on a farm, and therefore, equipment must always be in need of some sort of repair!  Hence, the cup under the lid of the snowmobile...

and the battery charger on the blazer...

And everyone dragging the beastly bear cat out of his corner because he has no intention of coming out of hibernation...

Aha!  Signs of life!

Up!  Up!  Up!

Turns out, it wasn't a very simple matter to park the trailer in the machine shed.  Since someone stacked a whole green house inside, and parked a couple of tractors inside as well, the machine had to be unloaded and parked back in the farthest corner it could get to!

But hey!  We did manage to make some progress in the apple shed after all of that!

First Day of Harvest

Today was the first day of my annual temporary insanity!

Gala is the first of twelve apple varieties to be harvested.

(oops, got some Amish arms in this clip - Joe was trying to grab a couple of wormy apples without interfering with my kodak moment).

Human resources does floors, too!

After our hired help went home, the Apple Farmer and the boys all had some fun picking and grading some apples too!

Apples getting ready for their bath -

Pulling out the ugly apples so they don't end up on the tables -

Autumn Bounty!

Went to the produce auction today. The apples didn't do great but they did a lot better. This is some beautiful Indian corn that I won at auction, and I also won a bunch of great pumpkins! It was loads of fun decorating!

Here are some of our apples on display. I'm still working on filling up the produce tables. Can you see some of the great pumpkins and gourds up above the tables?


This is a beautiful chest of drawers made by one of our Amish neighbors. It is an amazing piece of furniture, standing maybe 18 inches tall. The chest on the left of the bench is also his. I'm hoping we can sell a bunch of these for him.

It's the Attorney and he is sitting next to his favorite pumpkin!! He is growing so fast!

To market, to market to buy a fat...APPLE!

Here are the photos of the finished Apple Market.

I will try my hardest to describe what you are seeing so that you don't get lost on our tour!

This is the view as you walk in the entrance. Notice the big mess out on the packing floor. That gets cleaned up tomorrow. The green machine in the back ground is our washer/sorter machine. Do you see the fan in the opening out to the packing area? We are going to go stand by the fan and look in the market area from that perspective.

These are our produce tables. The smallest one is probably going out on the packing floor somewhere. I like the wheel barrow with the bushel baskets in it and around it better. The back wall is where I am going to hang my old red orchard ladder. The wall is the yummy chocolate color that Her Royal Highness painted herself with. Although the color was chosen for a rustic feel, I can't help but think of Hershey's when I see it. Hmmm, maybe I am sending the wrong subliminal messages!

This is the sales counter. Our 100 pound old fashioned cash register isn't up on the counter yet because we need to reinforce the counter to be able to hold its weight. Can you see the antique scale? The wooden contraption to the left is a single barrel apple cider press. The produce tables are on our left. I really LOVE the barnwood look! I love the green that I chose for the floor, but under this lighting I'm not quite so sure. The color card says Apple, but I think Sinus Infection when I see it. Hmmm, not the right message again...

Here are the close ups of the art work. I think maybe these might send a little stronger APPLE message! I am very excited that they turned out as they did. I haven't painted since around 1992. When I began painting these pictures on Thursday late afternoon I was completely overwhelmed with what I needed to accomplish in such little time. The paint brush and paints felt so foreign to me. Despite the race against time, I delayed so that I could ask for divine help and then I began to paint. I know that I received the help I asked for. Both of these paintings were completed in a matter of about 8 hours.

Chocolate Dipped...

My little helper!

The Story of the Apple Market

Here's a story -- of an apple market,
That started off as one big piggy barn...

(Just Kidding - no Brady Bunch music, I will just explain)!

Here is the hog barn that we disassembled. The Apple Farmer has mostly been out of town, so the boys and I took it upon ourselves two weeks ago to begin the demo project because we knew we were in desparate need of establishing a retail area in our apple packing shed. The boys loved tearing the building apart, especially climbing up on the roof (OK - I know its a Mother's worst nightmare to have her sons climbing around on a tin roof - but I was thrilled that they were begging me to go out and WORK)!

Human Resources is proudly standing upon the skeleton of the old building.

Hey - its me working on one of the paintings on the wall. It is supposed to be an apple pie a la mode!

We hired Jonas, one of our Amish neighbors, to do the carpentry work. I assisted him. He had a great time teasing me about being better at driving a vehicle than I was at driving nails. He does fabulous work! This picture shows a lot of a big mess, but the tin from the hog barn roof is on the bottom half of this wall, and above the tin is some of the barn wood. The two paintings are my feeble attempt to send subliminal messages to my customers that they need to BUY MORE APPLES! The pipes and electrical will eventually get covered up, it is just too late now since we begin harvesting apples on Tuesday.

Human Resources is sampling a Honey Crisp (YUM YUM) and Her Royal Highness is savoring a Gala. Doesn't that Gala look beautiful?!

Her Royal Highness is still savoring her apple!

So today, we finished the Apple Market, just in time for next week's harvest. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the finished deal! I forgot to take one before I drug my sad tired old body into the house to make dinner. Please check back soon to see!!