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When I was growing up, one of my least favorite tasks was
helping make apple butter. It seemed like it took forever, and it
did indeed take the better part of an entire day - usually on a
beautiful fall day that God must surely have provided for the sole
purpose of running around and playing in the woods. But there I was,
helping make apple butter while the precious daylight hours wasted
away!
Yes, in the opinion of most any little boy, a day spent making
apple butter is a day thoroughly wasted. First, you have to peel,
cut up and wash about a million apples. Then you have to gather a
mountain of firewood and keep the flame burning nice and hot for
hours on end...all the while stirring the smoldering apple butter
non-stop until you're old enough to begin sprouting facial hair. Of
course about every six minutes throughout the day I would annoy mom
just a little bit more by asking her if the apple butter was "almost
done"...
And finally, after having asked for about the 10,000th time, she
would say the two most beautiful words in the English language: "just
about". Shortly after that she would break out the "cans" and
start filling them up with the precious concoction that we had just
spent such a large portion of our lifetimes making. Finally, after all the
pint and quart jars were filled, an amazing thing would happen:
mom would give several jars of it away! I remember thinking "What
are you doing, mom? After all we went through to make that stuff
you're gonna hand it out for free?"
But that was mom, always being generous and sharing with others
regardless of how hard she had to work to get something. And she's
still the same way today. Reflecting back on those years, I now
understand why mom did so much work for what seemed to me to be such
a small "payout" - she had to. She had a large family to feed and
little extra money with which to do it, and we kids had to do our
part to help put food on the table. And now that I think about it,
those were some of the best times of my life.This picture was taken on October 26, 2002 as
mom and several members of her family spent a cool, cloudy day
making a huge kettle of apple butter. And as always, it tasted
great!
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