Applesauce and Angels, Aug 28,2022

 I have been making applesauce lately. Lots of it. It's tedious work. However we have a lot of apples that have been prematurely falling off the tree. Some, from the neighbor's tree, are an early apple, and they are ripe and delicious. However they are wormy. So I don't feel very comfortable giving them to people. "Here! Want some wormy apples with bruises?". Eww. And I'm sure this makes you very leery about eating things from my house anymore! But, that is why it is so tedious. It takes a long time to cut away the bad parts and put only the beautiful, delicious, healthy parts into the pot to boil into applesauce. And then process them.

Sunday afternoon, I had my arms full of four large heavy quarts of applesauce. I was taking them to the basement.

I am always very careful going downstairs these days. I know I am old and very vulnerable. Tandy's aunt a few years ago fell on some stairs and broke two of her leg bones! Compound fractures!! She's my age, actually a little lot younger. Lesson learned. Be careful! So as I traveled down MY stairs to the basement, I went one step at a time. Step, together. Step, together. Step, together. And I was watching!

AND I MISSED THE LAST STEP!!!

I could not believe it. I was being so careful. However, when it happened I just landed and walked. I did not hit the missed step and trip, I did not hyper extend my knee, I did not fall. It was truly miraculous and I recognize it as such. Honestly, Angels must have taken me by the arms and set me gently down.

Don't read this next paragraph if you have a squeamish stomach

I have had morbid thoughts many times as I've traversed those stairs with my arms loaded with bottles of preserved produce from my garden. I do it a lot. And I always think,"Man, if I fell right now I would die. With shards of glass quart bottles in my chest. What a mess. Tread carefully."

So far it hasn't happened. It didn't yesterday and I credit a guardian angel placing my feet where they needed to be and landing me softly. 

Praise ye the Lord. ( That's what my talk was in Sacrament meeting yesterday). And I do!

This is my fridge with FIVE bags of apples in it. Two more bags are in the garage from this morning. Mike was a sweetheart and picked them up today for me.   And now that our Jonathan apples are more mature, I can start dehydrating those. The early apples from next door are a bit too soft to dry. I usually pick up two plastic grocery bags full of dropped apples Every. Single. Morning. I think we will start giving these bags to a neighbor who has chickens and horses.

But, I also picked enough tomatoes this morning to bottle a small batch. And raspberries. Mmm. We do love our raspberries.

And green beans. And cucumbers. And an eggplant. So it was a good morning to be outside.