Thursday, October 24, 2013

Another Way to Preserve

We are loaded with apples and have been giving them away to anyone interested.  We have 8 different trees - 1 Macintosh, 3 Cortland, 2 Honey Crisp 1 Wolf River and 1 Yellow Newton Pippin. .  This was an excellent year for apples and that was nice because last year was the opposite for Wisconsin apples.  I've frozen slices for apple pies and cakes, made sugar free applesauce, canned apple juice and made a few pies and now I'm turning to a time honored method of preservation - dehydration.  We have an electric dehydrator but long ago, people used the sun or wood ovens to dry their fruit or veggies.  It's a clever way to keep the goodness of the food and conserve space.  The dehydrated product has concentrated flavor and nutrition and can be eaten as is or rehydrated with water.  I love the tasty little dried apples and they make a nice portable snack to carry in a small plastic bag............. Parsley from the herb garden is easy to do too and keeps us supplied for the year. ...........In case our planet gets a little too crowded in the future, perhaps our scientists will figure out a way to dehydrate people in a humane and workable way.  The human body is made up of 57 to 65 per cent water.  We'd probably need less food and living space if we were paper doll sized folks and wouldn't it be fun to float from place to place on the wind?!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Looking at the Big Picture

I was reading the National Geographic the other day and was stunned by one of its facts.  I guess they can't be perfectly accurate, but they estimate that since human beings appeared upon the earth there have been 107 billion of us.  That just boggles my mind.  Oh sure, I knew a lot of people preceded we who now tread carefully and not so carefully upon this nature based orb we call home.  But 107 billion is a lot of moms and pops and kids and food to feed us all.  We really are nothing new.  We have benefited so much from all of the advances made by earlier generations and hopefully we will leave this place a little bit better for having been here but if you know someone who thinks the sun rises and sets because of them, just remind them of the bigger picture - the bigger picture with 107 billion people smiling and laughing and crying through the ages.  And thank you, God, for not giving up on us!