Apples and pears

One of the great things about moving to our new place its that it's a lot closer to my sister's farm. They live just a few minutes from us now so we've been able to enjoy more time together. This weekend we headed over to do some apple and pear picking. They've got some fantastic old apple trees and one HUGE pear tree!

They are so full of fruit this year the branches are hanging really low.

Of course once we started picking we couldn't stop....

...and a couple bags of fruit turned into....

...sending the bro-in-law back to the house for a wheelbarrow! 

So now I'm ready to dive into all the apple recipes I can find (and a few for pears too)! I would've liked to can a bunch but unfortunately with the move, my canning stuff is still buried in some random box in the garage at our old house. So for this year I will be doing a lot  of freezing. On the list so far, apple butter, apple pie filling, some apple slices for apple crisp (my bro-in-law's fave, he deserves something for that trek back for the wheelbarrow!) pear butter and pearsauce, and first up, the project for tomorrow, spiced applesauce!