Apple Garland

This simple apple garland is made with faux apples strung together on twine. It's a pretty decoration for fall and you can make it as simple or grandiose as you'd like with as many embellishments as you prefer. For now, I think I like this one very simple with only apples and leaves.

Since I don't have a special tool for threading styrofoam apples, I fashioned my own out of wire and duct tape. I attached the twine to the end of the makeshift wire needle with the tape and got ready to string a dozen apples.

Once I pierced the apple, I worked to make sure that my wire remained as straight as possible as it made its way through the apple.

When I could see that it was beginning to poke through the other side, I pierced that area just a bit with another wire end, just to make my "needle's" exit as easy as possible. I used my wire cutters to grab and pull the wire all the way through, just because their grip is better than mine.

Your wire will obviously push through some of the styrofoam so that you'll get some small pieces that are pushed out with the wire. Also, your exit hole might look a little messy once you pull everything through; just use your finger to push the styrofoam and apple skin back into place.

I tried to make sure that I strung them at different angles so that the final result would include apples that could be viewed from multiple angles. String a whole bunch of them and hang them up!

At this point, I cut up a faux leaf branch with some wire cutters in order to get smaller 3 leaf bunches, poking the ends of those into the holes I made for stringing the apples, just to one side of each apple. I added two bunches to either end of the garland.

Of course, you could get really creative and add many different things. Maybe even blend a pennant banner between the apples. Or, keep it simple. I really love mine.

Canning Apple Pie Filling

I used someone else's recipe to can some apple pie filling this weekend. Delicious.
For the recipe I used, go here.

Apples in CNY

The husband and I went apple picking at Beak and Skiff near Syracuse, NY in September. So beautiful.

We rode down to the ready-to-harvest apple trees on a flatbed hooked to the back of a tractor. We picked bags full of galas and honeycrisp apples. Of course, we sampled the wares as we collected only the finest apples.

After all of that work, we were in need of (and deserved) some refreshment. We enjoyed apple donuts as well as freshly made fritters. Heavenly.

There is the most gorgeous view behind the apple vodka distillery. One of my goals this coming year is to take a picture from this location at all four seasons to display together. 

Once we got home, I needed to decide what to do with all of those apples (aside from eating another one). One of the things I did was to dehydrate them for yummy snacks. These are so easy to do. I only sliced them and laid them out evenly on each rack. They took about 6 hours or so to completely dry out. I slipped them into plastic baggies to save for later. 

Once I had peeled a few apples, I worried over what to do with all of those peelings. I have such a hard time wasting them! So, I made some apple tea. We already had some apple cider bag tea, but the addition of the apple peels really added some great flavor.

Such a fantastic way to relax after a not so exhausting day of apple picking.