APPLES, APPLE SAUCE AND FRIENDS

I am sorry I haven't blogged for a while been busy, as usual with the preschool kids and some other projects. Also Facebook is very addictive and I have found some friends and family that I have lost touch with.

Apples and applesauce, What a stupid conversation item. How can either of them possibly be very interesting and why would anyone what to talk about them.

Well, as you all know I love kids and sometimes I like to think like a kid and find out why they react to certain things. The week before Thanksgiving, we talked about our five senses. Of course we covered all of them. Tasted some things, went on a nature walk to gather things. We worked with shapes, textures, made telescopes, shakers, I am sure you get the idea. We also talked about mixing different substances, such as colors, and types of food,mineral etc.

On the Friday before Thanksgiving vacation we were to make applesauce. Now being a farm girl from Nebr and Utah, meaning a person who has and can preserve fruits and vegetables, make jams and jellies I knew we would need lot of apples. I have become lazy about cooking fresh,from scratch. So I hadn't been paying much attention to the apple market, Haven't been to Apple Hill for about three years . So I went to my favorite super market to get my apples. Imagine my surprise when I found so many. There were naturally the standard, Fuji, delicious,granny smith, jonathan, winesap. There was Aurora, Pinata,York, Cameo,Honey Crisp,Pink lady. And this is only a small percentage of the apples on display in that store.We get delicous apples for the lunch and breakfast menu, course, they aren't the most tasty, but some of these children do not get fruit fresh.

Now I always want to be first and the most unusual in the group, as long as I am not conspicuous. I bought a couple of fuji,red, then I bought an Aurora,yellow. I took them to school and we got all the apples from every one and made a wonderful applesauce. Part of the wonderful part was because we adults peeled the apples and then we gave our little buddies plastic knives and they cut the apples up, some of them needed help, but that is why we let them practice with plastic knives to cut playdough. The cut up apples were put into and electric skillet , sugar, small amount was added then we put cinnamon in, not a lot but enough to make it taste good. Each of the kids had an opportunity to stir the applesauce, One of the fathers was there as a volunteer, he and one of our little girls were the ones who cooked the applesauce. There were all different kinds of apples, which gave it a distinct taste. I have named this new recipe Angelina's apple sauce.

But this also prompted me to wonder about all of these apples and what was the difference , because to me there were two different kinds of apples. Eating and cooking. So this started me on a new adventure. On my way home, I stopped at the store and got three different kinds of apples. Being very curious and a bit of a scientific person I decided to do my own survey,experiment, just a curiousity thing. In light of this I have eaten and recorded several apples and am making another batch of Angelina's applesauce.

This brings me to the next part of my blog. Friends are like the apples , they are different some of them are family, which puts them into two different categories.then there are the people that you have meet and may still be friends with , friends who came into your life and then moved on and you don't see them anymore. But in your heart they are your friend. Just like athe apples, when you need a friend . You dig down to reach for that person. and if you are lucky you can merge all of these friends together to make a new set of friends , heal some old wounds and go on with your life. A new mix is formed.

About fifteen years ago, I lost a very good friend, his name was James. For years I mourned his death, that was the only thing I could remember about him. Recently, I found another way to honor my friend. I heard of a baby, who was to born on the same day as he was born. To honor my friend, I made my mind up to honor him by being glad about the new birth. I will not bore you with what I did ,But from this time forward I will honor his life in this way. I used buy balloons and send them into the sky until my friend Shane said that was littering . Thank you Shane for making me think.