Well last week I concentrated on getting the pears processed and canned.  I had to peel, slice and remove the seeds on a half bucket of pears.  I won't lie and say it was easy.  I've started looking for tools to help these soft hands like a mandolin, a corer/peeler, and a corer/slicer.  That being said, the cooking and sanitizing of the jars/lids was easy. 

Asian Pears being hand sliced

 

Cooking and smashing

 

Jars of Pear Butter!

The actual filling and boiling of the jars was easy.  The whole process was really cool!  I know I'm new at this and it will probably get old pretty quick, but I'm enjoying it right now.  I especially enjoyed the popping sound as the jars cooled because it meant I did everything right!

So this time around I decided to boil the pears down and puree them into pear butter.  It turned out really good!

We've already picked a bunch of the ripe persimmons (they're small because they haven't been 'fruited' in a long while - that's where you pull off some of the fruit when they are first growing so the rest can get big).  I think the darn things are hardly anything but seeds!  I'm gonna try to make some jelly with them and concentrate on a better harvest next year.  We have been talking about what fruit trees we want to plant and realized that the ones we have are in the way and are way too tall and overgrown to be 'harnessed' so we're probably gonna knock em down and create a fruit tree grove.  For sure we want to have apples, peaches and pears but beyond that we're still not sure what to plant.  I have read that fall is the best time in our neck of the woods to plant fruit trees so I suspect you'll get to see us planting fruit trees before too long.

 We've gotten a lot of rain and the pond is filling nicely.  We did notice that a little pond scum has started to form and we are working on getting some white amur (aka triploid grass carp).  They're supposed to keep vegetation down but have to be sterile because the state says so.  I suspect it is to protect natural species from the grass carp taking over.  This week will be a probable wash because Will hurt his back working on the new bathroom.  He's laid up in bed frustrated because it doesn't hurt when he lies down but the second he tries to move he gets a lot of pain. 

I don't really feel too sorry for him because he gets to lay there watching TV shows he's missed and playing video games until his back heels while I'm at work.  I'll let you know how the persimmon jelly turns out!