The Zen of a Thousand Apples

This is how I spend my time these days, peeling apples, chopping apples, coring apples, boiling apples, mashing apples, drying apples.

And still there are more apples under the tree.

And I could just give up on them. There are many other things I should be doing. But I hate to waste them. I find there is something important about using them as much as I can, saving them for the winter, not just giving them to the pigs and rabbits and chickens (who all love them too, not to mention Xana) or putting them in the compost. It's satisfying to spend the time accepting this gift of abundant apples, appreciating them even though I'm swimming in them. I don't know a thing about Zen, but I imagine it has to do with figuring out what to do with thousands of apples.

This picture shows my two apple tools of choice, by the way. I'm generally not one for a lot of extra kitchen gadgets, but these two really help. The apple peeler not only peels but slices and cores at the same time. When the apple is done, I slice the whole thing in half and come up with the slices as you see them on the tray. I use the strawberry corer thing (which is also awesome for strawberries) to pick out the bruises without losing the whole slice. It's a scalpel (not a hatchet), and only takes out what you don't want.

Xana, the cow, is thrilled with the apple peels. She looks up whenever I'm anywhere near her paddock. And if I actually walk toward her and call her name, she canters over right away. So much for skittish (and no worries of choking).