Autumn Leaves

As expected, there was no sewing yesterday. After Saturday's marathon, it was good to take a break anyway. I had apple pie filling to make. Yesterday's yield was 8 pints, and I have a couple of apples left over.

There would have been nine pints except that one of the jars blew its top in the final minutes of the 30-minute processing time. It surprised me, and it caused me to ask a question of fellow canners on Facebook. Their responses were friendly attempts at being helpful, but really offered no new information.

So here's the story, and maybe one of you might know something. This batch of pie filling is about the 5th or 6th time I've made pie filling of any flavor. I like these pint jars of filling because they are perfect for making pies for two. So, anyway...I'm using this recipe from the Fresh Preserving website. The only change I'm making is to cut the apples into chunks rather than slicing them. They fit better in the jars that way. Also, I increase the processing time by five minutes to accommodate our 1,400 feet of elevation, as recommended in this handy chart. I've had problems with siphoning in the past, and so for this batch, I left a full 1-1/2 inches of head space. It seemed to help the siphoning problem, but there was still a little bit on every jar. Most of the fruit ended up under the ring, and so I removed the lids and wiped off the sticky jars. I'm satisfied with the level of siphoning that occurred, and it seems to be unavoidable with pie fillings. (As for my question, it's about how to prevent siphoning altogether. I haven't found the right combination of conditions yet.)

Here's where things got interesting. I was sitting, reading stuff on my iPad, waiting for the timer to tick down to the end of 30 minutes. At approximately 26 minutes, I heard a dull thud. When I checked the canner, I was dismayed to find one of the jars had spilled its contents into the surrounding boiling water. I thought one of the jars had broken from thermal shock, which seemed unusual so far into the processing time. When everything settled down and I could see what happened, I found the lid and ring floating in the water, and the upright jar, empty, but still intact. In 40 years of canning, I've never seen that before. Certainly, I've had a couple of jars break from thermal shock, but I've never seen one blow its lid clean off.

So anyway...one fewer jars than I was expecting, but I'm happy with how things worked out. Before changing the topic though, I want to mention that my 1-1/2 inches of head space all but disappeared. The jars are full to the brim now that they've been processed. The mysteries of canning are beyond my feeble mind's comprehension. I just do as I'm told.

With the apple pie filling done, it was time to head out to pick up a wine shipment. We first stopped off at Domaine Drouhin. This winery is owned by a French family with vineyards and wineries in France and Oregon. You can read a little about them right here. Our fall colors are very pretty this year after significant rainfall in September. We often get a big wind at the beginning of October that knocks all the leaves off the trees. This year, the wind has stayed away, and the leaves have stayed too.

The vineyards were surprisingly green on yesterday's drive, also from the September rainfall, no doubt.

This next image is from the Sokol-Blossor winery, just up the road.

After that, we stopped off at The Allison, a hotel and spa just down the hill from our house. I'd seen some pictures on Facebook and I wanted to see the autumn color for myself. As it turns out, the lighting wasn't as good as in the pictures I'd seen, and so the fall leaves were a little bit of a disappointment. Still, the grounds at the hotel are lovely, and their gardens were very pretty.

Even their roses were still blooming.

What I loved most were the various art works stationed around the grounds. I'm showing you a few of my favorites. They are all for sale, and so I've given you the information, just in case you have a small fortune in cash burning a hole in your pocket.

By far, this was my favorite. If only I had $4,000 just lying around...these would so be in my yard right now.

Look at their "fuzzy" butts!

Just too cute.

As we were leaving to head back to our car, we passed by these snowberries, or symphoricarpos albus, if you must know their snotty botanical name.

Usually when I see them at this stage, the foliage on the plant has already turned brown and dropped off. Finally, one bit of fall color as we left the gardens.

And that was the end of our day.

Today I'll get back to my sewing. I'm going to start getting caught up on the Garden Sunshine QAL. Tomorrow I'll be setting everything aside to begin free motion quilting the Wine Country quilt.