Awash in apples

Through our local social network, this fall we picked up four buckets of black walnuts at one place, and considerably more than that of apples at another.

Last year, we brought home enough apples to last into spring, aside from the ones we cooked or preserved in various ways.

This year was also a good year for apples, although not quite of the quality of last year's bumper crop.

We were out picking after dark with headlamps, and I was surprised to see how many moths were going after the bruised apples on the ground.

I found a new recipe, not with apples but for apples, from an old community-fundraiser cookbook.  It is a topping for an apple cake, and it looked so weird that I figured it had to be good.  We are using it for a dip for apple slices, although it is rather drippy.  As the original recipe says, "Texture may be funny and brown flecks may appear":

Topping for Apple Cake/Dip for Apples

1 Cup sugar

1/2 Cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Combine ingredients in saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it boils.   

The brown flecks are from the sugar beginning to caramelize, which doesn't take long, and the result tastes like caramel and almost like marshmallow.  I found that leaving it in the pan after cooking resulted in more of the sugar caramelizing, and tending to crystallize on the sides and bottom of the pan, along with making the overall color more brown.

Should have worn a respirator

I took a look at a free-by-the-side-of-the-road upright bagless vacuum that I picked up a while back.

It had very weak suction, and with a little investigation it was easy to see why:  the filters were caked and choked with dust.  Someone decided to buy a new vacuum rather than spend a few minutes dealing with them.

The filters are washable, so I washed them, and they're drying now.  I think the belts are okay.

If it's good to go, this will be the basement vacuum.  My canister vacuum from a German manufacturer is about twelve years old, and still works fine.

I've gotten more interested in free appliances like this since I learned how much metal can be salvaged out of them.  And hardware.

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There's a Popular Science book from the World War II years that I've been leafing through:  the "Second Giant Home Workshop Manual".  It's a frenetic mix of home science demonstrations, home improvement projects, and DIY wartime preparedness, punctuated by instructions on how to electroplate with various metals.

It reminds me in some ways of the early years of the pandemic.

The 'cleaning reflex' was triggered

Yesterday I took apart my living room, down to rolling up the Very Nice Rug and taking it outside and letting little children jump around on it.

The fall cleaning was long overdue, but it was initiated, in this case, by a child throwing a pinecone and breaking a storm window.

The pinecones were free, from church, but they turned out to be an expensive lesson for that child.

Anyway, having figured out the magic secret of removing the screen and the other storm window--it seems like it is a different secret for every rental we've lived in--I was able to clean the whole window, and then went on to wash the outsides of the other first-floor windows.

Returning inside, with the kids' desktop computers already disconnected to get at the window, I decided to keep going, slowly.

The children wanted the computer table moved to a different wall, and I wanted to move the toy shelf somewhere less prominent, replacing it with bookshelves that were already in the room.

I took out one end table, which used to function as a perch for little children and now only accumulates clutter.

The toy shelf went in front of a window.  I put our very rustic red dollhouse on it, knowing that our cat likes to curl up in one of the upstairs rooms.  Now she can watch both the family and the outside world from up there.  The rest of the dollhouse is again being used for drawing and coloring supplies.  

The second fridge discovers its destiny

The second, "stupid little apartment" fridge was due for a cleaning and defrosting, and then a child left its freezer door ajar for long enough that there was too much frost for it to close.

So, an unscheduled defrosting.  The good part is that wiping the ice and water off the interior more or less took care of the cleaning part, although I did also clean behind and under it.

There's been a bit of a dead mouse smell around, which I thought might be from back there, but it wasn't.  The smell was worse outside, and we looked all over along one whole side of the house several times without finding anything.

It seems to have been in one of the gutter downspout extensions; it went away after we finally got some rain.

Anyway, after getting the fridge dried and plugged back in again, I had an idea.  Instead of being The Overflow Fridge, or The Weird Ingredients of My Husband's Fridge, it could be The Leftover Fridge.

It is smaller and shallower, so there's not room for things to be lost in the back.  Also, if it gets full, I can easily see what can be thrown out to make room.

So far, this is working very well.

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For the toy bin, I found a fabric basket/bag I had made some years ago.  It sits in the bin and holds most of the toys.