(D♥A) MORE ABOUT PEARS

 It is a beautiful Fall day here, and as I take a break from pealing pears, I realize that we have gotten so caught up in all the Fall work on the farm that we forgot to post a pear update.  As you may have noticed in recent posts, we have been up to our elbows in preparing the fruits of our foraging expedition, so here's a brief update.

On Sunday, Anna made contact and arrangements for the pears from the our previous posting.  Those beautiful pears were actually not going to be used! Monday found us with buckets and tubs, gathering a good supply of fruit, much of which we picked up from the ground.  We had to fight the Yellow Jackets for a few, but neither of us got stung, thank goodness! Many of the pears had bruises and blemishes, but still great pears for canning, and such a shame to let them rot on the ground.  We also picked some from the tree for eating fresh and longer keeping. But we should have taken a tall ladder, as the best ones, of course, were waaaaayyy up high in the tree, far above either of our reach. Considering our extreme heat and drought this summer, it is amazing that any fruit tree was this productive this year.

Since that time, we have both been spending a lot of time pealing and preserving pears in between other necessary activities.  Yes, there is a fair amount of so called waste to the damaged fruit, but with farm animals to feed, there is really no waste at all.  The chickens and goats at both farms are enjoying the leftovers to the fullest, like kids in a candy store.

We will post further updates soon, hopefully with pictures.  For now,  there is work to be done while resting from the fruit processing.