using up apples
13 Sep 2021 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneLast year things were happening a lot and we got a huge apple crop that mostly just filled us with despair. I remember tasting a few of them, but we never managed to get around to gathering up any or doing anything with them. The main thing was just that there were WAY more of them than normal and they picked a poor time for it. Last year I didn't even KNOW that they were my favorite variety of apples, Kanel apples! That means "cinnamon", and it's a common home garden variety in Finland at least, especially hereabouts, but by no means the only one. They're on the small side and sweeter than average, and distinctive because of the red/pink veining in the flesh.
Well, this year I wouldn't say that we're ON TOP OF anything, but we have managed to gather most of the windfall apples before they've had time to rot underfoot, and to get many of the inedible ones out of the pathway and either into the bushes or onto the compost heap. Friday I went a little nuts trying to pick up all the ones that had fallen in the last week and take them inside though, so we decided to make a big batch of apple jam and a big batch of dried apple chips (bunny treats). So today Wax peeled and segmented while I washed and mandolined apples until she had 2 kg in a big soup pot and I had completely filled the fruit dryer. Snookums curled up next to me on the other half of the table but Tristana was interested enough to keep her awake staring at me for most of the process.
Last week we impulse-bought an external hard drive that was supposed to have a licensed picture of Captain America on it, but the store screwed up and sent us the wrong one. It was on sale, and it felt too silly and petty to return it for that even though it WAS quite disappointing, especially because they sent us the Avengers group image one, which was the least visually striking of the bunch. Nonetheless, we proceeded to excavate all the three-year-old backups from the harddrives in our spare PC and go through them, and in the process I also went through my data and media files and updated the backups on the external harddrive, then reformatted the harddrive I keep my media and data and settings on. I renamed it as a matter of course, but without pausing to consider that that would break links in my system files because I had set it to mount on boot when I installed the OS. As a result, I had to edit the configuration file manually and then delete and remake all the symlinks in my file browser (which has to be done at the command line now because Gnome in their infinite wisdom removed the ability to create symlinks from Nautilus a while ago). I even had to go find and replace the file paths in my saved playlists because they're all saved as xml! But I rebooted the system and everything is working perfectly. My files are now all hosted on Pierrot (albeit the same physical volume as before!)... and I'm feeling quite proud of myself.
Well, this year I wouldn't say that we're ON TOP OF anything, but we have managed to gather most of the windfall apples before they've had time to rot underfoot, and to get many of the inedible ones out of the pathway and either into the bushes or onto the compost heap. Friday I went a little nuts trying to pick up all the ones that had fallen in the last week and take them inside though, so we decided to make a big batch of apple jam and a big batch of dried apple chips (bunny treats). So today Wax peeled and segmented while I washed and mandolined apples until she had 2 kg in a big soup pot and I had completely filled the fruit dryer. Snookums curled up next to me on the other half of the table but Tristana was interested enough to keep her awake staring at me for most of the process.
Last week we impulse-bought an external hard drive that was supposed to have a licensed picture of Captain America on it, but the store screwed up and sent us the wrong one. It was on sale, and it felt too silly and petty to return it for that even though it WAS quite disappointing, especially because they sent us the Avengers group image one, which was the least visually striking of the bunch. Nonetheless, we proceeded to excavate all the three-year-old backups from the harddrives in our spare PC and go through them, and in the process I also went through my data and media files and updated the backups on the external harddrive, then reformatted the harddrive I keep my media and data and settings on. I renamed it as a matter of course, but without pausing to consider that that would break links in my system files because I had set it to mount on boot when I installed the OS. As a result, I had to edit the configuration file manually and then delete and remake all the symlinks in my file browser (which has to be done at the command line now because Gnome in their infinite wisdom removed the ability to create symlinks from Nautilus a while ago). I even had to go find and replace the file paths in my saved playlists because they're all saved as xml! But I rebooted the system and everything is working perfectly. My files are now all hosted on Pierrot (albeit the same physical volume as before!)... and I'm feeling quite proud of myself.
(no subject)
Date: 13 Sep 2021 07:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Sep 2021 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 13 Sep 2021 08:35 pm (UTC)I have a cast iron (I think?) apple peeler/corer/slicer that has been unchanged in design since the 50s (this one, actually: https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/kitchen/kitchen-tools/peelers/45729-apple-peeler?item=EV120) and it really does take about 5 seconds per apple, so that's changed my feelings on apples substantially.
The blanket the cats have claimed is very attractive!
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Date: 14 Sep 2021 05:50 pm (UTC)The kitty pillow features a shawl we never blocked because the border looked weird, which we designated as Tristana's baby blanket and wrapped around her when we brought her home.
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Date: 14 Sep 2021 08:34 am (UTC)Getting your backups back up to date is definitely not nothing and I'm proud of you too for getting so much done :D