Picked Apples and Pears

I usually have oatmeal mush every morning.  I make one batch which contains a handful of raisins, a little salt, two cups of water and one cup of old fashion oats.  I put equal amounts sin three mush bowels.  I have one for breakfast and one in the morning and one the next morning.  Sometimes Carol eats one or has it at night.  The first thing this morning I made the mush as usual, but I used the raisins from the grapes that we grew.  Carol had one of the bowels and quickly recognized that it was the raisins I made.  They were pretty good, they didn't have the taste that I was expecting.  The raisins that I made are juicy and tasty.

Every time I through the orchard I notice the pears.  They were heavy and some of the branches were bent down touching the ground.  Others were broke.  Over the years we have had a good harvest of pears.  They are hard and instead of ripening in our pantry, they begin to rot.  On You Tube the other day I was watching a video on when and how to harvest pears. You snap the pear stem from the branch.  I it leaves a scar, then it is ready to be picked.  About 80% broke of properly.  Below is a branch touching the ground.

I got two five gallon buckets full of pears.  They are hard and instead of leaving them in the pantry, I left them in the garage.   In three or four days the should be ready to eat.

I picked a bucket of apples of the tree west of house five.  The apples are wormy.  I sprayed them once this spring when they were the size of a marble.  The tree is really productive and quite short.  Next year I could easily cover it with a netting to keep the apple moth at bay.

I can't resist taking pictures of our old kittens or young cats.  The black cat is very casual.