Apples and Aprons

We are practicing alliteration this week. 😊

My friend Susan and I, along with our pastor, were invited to lunch with two members of our congregation who are in an assisted living facility in Kalispell. I picked Susan up yesterday morning and we drove in to meet them there at noon. We had an excellent meal and visited with them for a couple of hours. Susan and I also ran our errands while we were out and about.

Susan has a large orchard of about 40 fruit trees, mostly apples. She loves heritage apple varieties and has grafted quite a few. Because she has run out of room in her own orchard, I am now the beneficiary of her grafting experiments and have half a dozen trees from her nursery. One of them is Westfield Seek-No-Further, which I asked her to graft specifically for me because it appears in a series of books I love by Sara Donati. (The Wilderness Series.) I’ve also got several Duchess of Oldenburg trees—my favorite pie apple—a Liberty, and a Spokane Beauty. She will have more for us to plant here next spring.

Susan and her husband went over to Sandpoint, Idaho, a few weeks ago for an apple tasting. The tasting was hosted by the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center, part of the University of Idaho. Susan has also gotten scion wood for grafting from SOAC. She said she got to try about 30 different varieties of apples. SOAC hosts a free monthly webinar series on apples—breeding, growing, and harvesting—and Susan says they are very well done.

Apparently the museum there had an exhibit on aprons. Susan knows I love aprons, so she took some pictures for me. The first photo she took, though, was of the sign on the library:

How appropriate.

And the aprons!

I love this style, below. I don’t look that good when I’m ironing, though.

So elegant:

I might try to get over to Sandpoint next year for the apple tasting. It sounds like it was a lot of fun.

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I have to get my teeth cleaned this morning and then I am coming home to try to get some things done. I ought to can up the pumpkins because I want some on hand for making pies. I need to revisit that Linda pants pattern, too. And I have to figure out what is going on with the BMW and when I’ll be able to have it back.