Can I still earn a badge for this?

The Urban Farmgirls strike again - what a cool, cool day we had on Saturday. Spent the day over at Christi's making applesauce, apple-rhubarb sauce and apple-rhubarb butter. Canning 101 was the syllabus for the day, but there was also homemade bread being made, squash roasting in the oven followed by squash seeds and the "Village Childcare" in full operation (this has nothing to do with the scary movie, "The Village" that I was supposed to watch this weekend!).

We were there for almost seven hours and in that time, many Farmgirls came and went with about seven different little babes ranging from 8 months to 3 years. Jackson was crazy giddy watching all of the little ones crawl and walk/run around! We kept saying how cool it was to just get together with a bunch of awesome women and DO things like this. It's too bad that our culture doesn't value "the village" like back in the day. You know, "it takes a village to raise a child?" We just traded off with apple-rhubarb tasks, tending babes, making lunch, tending babes, etc. It was so, so cool.

Here's what we made. Please forgive the overload of photos, I was so excited with learning how to can that I took many, many photos.

Christi bought bushels of apples for us at the Farmer's Market that morning.

We kept finding apples with little bites taken out of them since all of the kidlets were crawling/scooting all over the place.

Apples cooking in a big pot...one of many going on the stove all day!Apples cooking down to sauce...

...and being canned! This was so cool. I can't wait to can more things. I want to preserve everything now!

Jack having the time of his life!
A kidlet sampling one of the apples.

The next day, Dan and I decided to continue to enjoy the beautiful fall weekend by taking a hike at Afton State Park on the St. Croix River. It was an incredible day. Just gorgeous outside. Jackson was totally excited by the waves on the river as we walked along the beach and we had a great picnic lunch outside. He wasn't too interested in lunch though, since leaves kept falling on the blanket right in front of him. Toys falling from the sky!


In other Jackson news, today was a big day for him: CRAWLING and CLAPPING on the same day. Wow! He just mastered both right before bedtime and then crashed big time. I imagine we'll have lots of practicing of both going on around here tomorrow. To prepare, we've finally started to babyproof the living room. Mom's and Dad's books are packed up in boxes and Jack's books and toys have replaced them on the shelf (we're getting pushed out!). We've also put those little plugs into the outlets around the house. So when the battery juice dies on this laptop, that's it. No more computer time. Those things are next to impossible to get out, so we won't have any way to recharge! Ah well, who has time to blog when the baby learns to crawl anyway?

One more thing to report: I spent the afternoon teaching a bunch of Girl Scouts to knit with some of the Farmgirls. Who knew that you could have a Girl Scout troop without having a daughter?! There's hope yet, I'm totally excited about this. I mean, I was Top Cookie Seller in my troop way back when! It was so fun to hang out with a bunch of girls and teach them how to knit...so, so fun.

(But we still need about eight sets of size 8 straight needles for them! We were using a Girl Scout Council kit to teach them to knit so they can't take the needles and yarn home to keep practicing. They're low-income kids so we can't ask the families for contributions. If you want to send a set of needles to the cause, let me know in the comments! Deadline: October 15.)

I had to stop in the gift store on the way out of the Girl Scout Council office and what did I find? The "My Dad's a Cookie Dad" patch at the top of this post. How cool is that?! My Dad WAS the Cookie Dad and even has a plaque on his wall to prove it. Now if only I could find my old Girl Scout sash to sew it on...

Lastly, I wish I could say "click here for smell-o-vision" to open on your computer as you look at this next photo. Dan baked bread tonight. This is the perfect way to end a great weekend and to start off our week. All's well.