End of summer veggies

Gotta love neighbors who bring bags of peppers!  Lindy harvested all their peppers today because it is going to freeze tonight.  Lucky me!!  Most chopped and ready for the freezer....a few saved to be used in the chile for lunch today!!

Apple Jelly

While we were in Oriental over the weekend, we strolled through the very small farmer's market there.

I picked up a bag of "mountain" apples for a donation to a charity. Duane was standing behind me already seeing that the apples were not very good....but, what the heck, seemed like a nice charity.

I picked some McIntosh, some Romes and the "last Arkansas Black" according to the nice lady. I took a bite out of one as we were walking away....yuck! Not crisp at all.

Anyhoooo, I did take the bag home and decided to make some jelly - hadn't done that in a few years, actually.

Turns out, they were from Tennessee....maybe that was what was wrong (our NC roots showing thru!!)

Chopped 'em up....boiled them down to a thick sauce.  I left the peeling on to try to get some nice color for the jelly.

Squeezed the sauce thru my food mill to separate out the peeling.

At this point, I usually put the sauce in cheesecloth and let it sit for hours to drain out all the juice....but I didn't have any.  I did, however, have some fairly fine netting.  So, I doubled it and left the sauce sitting.

Isn't that pretty, fresh apple juice.  A little less than clear, but I kindof like my jelly more like "jam" anyway!

After the juice was mostly drained, there is just a small ball of "pulp" left.

Boiled the juice down a bit and added tons of sugar until it "sheeted" off the spoon. Into sterile jars....now I need to bake me some sourdough bread and I'll be in heaven!!!

Fun at Oriental

I'm going to post this over at Glory Days too.....

We've had a nice long weekend in Oriental....Friday night the Oriental Old Theater showed the movie "Psycho" - 5 bucks got you into the movie and all the popcorn you cared to eat! What a deal....plus there was some local entertainment and "introduction" to the movie....many wore shower caps....

There was even a shower cap "hawker"....we just relaxed and watched the festivities. Good fun and the theater was packed! I didn't know there were that many people in Oriental!!

Remember, our foresail was destroyed in Hurricane Irene.....we finally received the replacement.

Here is the barren bow of the boat....

The sail laid out ready to be hoisted...

Easy, peasy!  All set for sailing again! 

So, we had to take her out an make sure all is well.  Wonderful fall sailing with fairly warm temps and 20 knot breezes.

We sailed for a few hours - approaching Oriental we sailed through a race course.....pretty little spinnaker...

Fun, fun!!

Oriental

Beautiful morning at the marina, cup of coffee in hand with Coffeemate's new Peppermint Mocha flavor!

Sunday Dinner in Hendersonville!

We had missed visiting with Granny and Cordy when we were home for my high school reunion....Granny invited us up for lunch on Sunday. And it was a beautiful day for it!

Leaving the house - all is still pretty much green down our way.

I know, the photos never do the pretty leaves justice....here we are approaching Asheville.  It really was pretty - the leaves started changing to pretty yellows and reds as we passed Rutherfordton and the foothills. 

Landed at the smaller Hendersonville airport - Cordy arrived a few minutes later to pick us up.

The Hendersonville airport is a bit small compared to most of the airports we fly into. Duane, of course, always does a nice job no matter what kind of airport. (I usually choose calm days, good visibility and long runways for my flights!!)

Here is a photo of an airplane landing over the pretty trees....I think they need a good trim, myself!

After a very yummy lunch and a little harvesting from their huge garden, it was time to head back home for some Sunday chores....Granny and Cordy seeing us off....

Oh, and here's my "loot" from the trip!

Pickled Okra!

Lindy's garden is still producing copious amounts of okra....thanks very much!

For today's batch, I decided to do a little "pickle" operation....yummy, they will be!

Packed tight in clean jars....

Crushed up some of the dried hot peppers from last year....

Spices on top - dill, garlic, mustard seeds, salt, black pepper.....

Poured boiling hot vinegar/water to cover the okra....sealed up bright green now.....

This photo is this morning - they are "curing" - we can eat 'em in a week or so!

Motorcycle!

I searched my photos, and can't find a single photo of my "previous life" that shows my "motorcycle days"....but, honestly, I really did ride a Honda 175 street bike between 1978 and 1982. Duane had a Kawasaki 185 about the same time-frame. We had them at NC State because freshmen couldn't have cars on campus - Mom trailered them to the "big city" of Raleigh for us in the fall of 1980. Good times - grocery shopping with a milk crate strapped to the luggage rack....then we sold them - purchased a pristine 1978 Suzuki 550 when we were newlyweds (1982).

Kids and life got in the way - a few rides in the ensuing years.....

Amazing that you never forget how - same gear pattern - no help necessary - had a nice cruise around the neighborhood on Richard's bike (he borrowed the pickup and left this in driveway!!)

Just a quick update on the fall gardening....my newly tilled and planted garden has a little surprise for me - a leftover cucumber has "volunteered" it's seeds! I'm suspecting the frost will get them soon though.

The only thing popping up so far is a row of radishes.  I see little sprouts of lettuce and collards.  I buried the onion sets deep so they might survive the winter - so they're not peeking up yet!

Otherwise around the house we've still got some color -

And one remaining pepper plant on the deck in a pot.  I'm saving these until closer to frost.

And of course, some mums.  The buds on these mums were completely nibbled off by the deer about a month ago.  I thought for sure that I would have no blooms.....

Mums must be different than other flowers because they grew new buds - and they're just beautiful and autumn-y!!

Monty Python's take on Fall

My sis apparently has fall in full force in ND....this reminds me of her one-and-only tree during fall:

More reunion photos

Just thought I'd share a few extra photos that I've found from other folks at the reunion!

30TH (loud gasp!!) High School Reunion

Off to Mills River for my 30th high school reunion....amazing to think it's been that long.  Seems like yesterday!

 We flew in to Asheville airport early on Saturday morning because the runway was going to be closed their 50th anniversary celebration that included a 5K run on the runway!  Very strange to close a public runway for a non-aviation event.  We arrived just in time -

We visited with Mom and Frank for a while at the airport (they were at the airport participating in the "Leaf Flights" that the WNC Pilots Assoc. does every year).  We had lots of time to kill before we could check into our hotel, so we did a little sight-seeing.  As youngsters (17-18 yr olds) we used to hike down to Green River or the Big Hungry....so we found a trail and went for a hike.  This was NOT a trail we had been on before and ended up being a couple of hours and ALOT of elevation change!

It was a chilly day - but the jacket eventually came off because I was sweating!

We ended up at an overlook of the "Green River Narrows" - some crazy white water that crazy people ride kayaks down.....you can see it thru the trees here.

If you care to - look at this video on Youtube....crazy people!!





This is the trail leading down to the river....you literally had to grab the roots to climb it.  They also nicely provided some ropes to help you in areas that didn't have tree roots!

A fun hike - which we weren't really prepared for....

Drove past the Big Hungry dam....

On to the hotel - where we met up with Michelle and Daniel, good friends from grade school/high school.  Before we knew it, time for the reunion!

Now, most of you know that I spent my senior high school year at NC State....so I was NOT part of the voting to choose the "class slogan".  It really was "We are Sexy, We are Fun, We're the Class of '81"!!!  Wow, see what I missed?

Sorry for the dark photo - there was a professional photographer there - so we didn't take many photos.  They will be sending us a disc with lots of (much better) photos.

I grabbed this photo from Facebook....this is just the graduates....acting silly after our formal "group shot"...

Who are these people??  We had a great time!  (Or at least I know I did, Duane did a nice job of appearing to!)

That was pretty much it for my photos from the reunion - I will post some more when I get the disc.

On Sunday, we did some more sight-seeing, waiting for some gusty winds to settle down for the flight home.   We decided to go back hiking down a trail to Green River that we had taken several times back in high school.  This one was a much easier trail.  Ended up at the point where the kayakers put in for the "Narrows".

So pretty and quiet there (except for the rushing river, of course!)  I guess these guys are getting up their courage as the rapids are just down-river.

Back up the Big Hungry - this is a spot I remember from all those years ago. 

Beautiful!!  Hiked back out and had an uneventful flight home!!  Now for the next 30!!!