Last week, with a few of our homeschooling friends, we trucked up to Turtle Lake to pick some organic apples from another homeschooling family with an orchard. Nearly three bushels later, we came home. They had our favorites- sweet 16- which taste awesome but also are great for making sauce because you don't have to add sugar, as well as Firesides- which we are great for fresh eating and most importantly, keep well. So in between all of the pumpkin baking (which deserves it's own post- I discovered some new yummy recipes), I have been preserving apples. On Friday the kids and I made an assembly line style batch of apple sauce (Me-washer and peeler, Jackson- corer and slicer, Grace and Nora- final choppers) which I didn't bother canning because we gave a few jars away and ate the rest up. Today (by myself because everyone else is done appling) I made a giant batch of sauce and canned 12 jars. Now only half of a laundry basket to go (and a fridge full of apples for eating that I'm hoping will last us awhile).
In the midst of all of this fall harvesting and baking (as well as homeschooling, parenting, cleaning, and everything else that seems to demand so much of my time), I am trying so hard to make space in my life for regular meditation as I promised myself after my retreat. It can be so challenging at times because so often I feel like there is something "better" I should be doing. And yet today, when I sat down in the messy aftermath of applesauce canning and lit my candle, I was reminded once again of how spending a few moments in silence is actually always the best thing I could be doing.
When I blew out the candle several minutes later, even my sink full of applesauce dishes looked beautiful to me.
"The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between" ~ Zen proverb
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