Paint!

Front before...

...and after (in progress).

Garage before...

...and after (in progress).

Entryway before...

...and after (in progress).

All weekend long, I was reminded of a silly song from a musical that I was in as a child. It was based on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. There was a song that Tom and Huck sung together while painting the fence. All I can remember was one line "Painting the fence, painting the fence...blah, blah, blah, blah...." Ugh. Nothing like having just one line of a long ago forgotten song as an ear worm!

Anyway, this weekend, we finally began painting our house. We started with the trim paint on Saturday and managed to do most of the front (where most of the trim resides!). We had to paint the entire front entryway (since it was replaced and formerly yellow anyway), the garage side door, both garage doors and trim, and the new decorative band across the front gable. We also painted the trim along the roof line and around all the windows.

Then on sunday, we began on the wall color. It is a blue grey color called Pelican Bay and I was afraid that it would be too dreary. Luckily, I was kind of remembering it incorrectly. Once it was on the house in a few places, it was more blue than grey and it looks really nice. Our house is taking on a slight "Nantucket-y" feeling to me. It reminds me a little of the cute colonial houses in the coastal New England towns of my youth. We managed to finish about 3/4ths of the front of the house. We haven't even touched on anything else yet and it's not for lack of work. We were painting ALL weekend! I'm thinking that we should finish the front using brushes, but then I'm going to suggest that we rent a sprayer to do the sides and part of the back where there is very little trim, small windows, and lots of open wall space. Then the other part of the back - near the porch - we can do with brushes again. Otherwise, we'll never get this done!

Luckily, the weather forecast for next weekend gives us at least one day of sun and temps in the 60's. It's a start!

A date for Sasafras

We did it! We found an Alpine buck to breed Sass with...locally. Very local, in fact. They live about 4 miles from us! We decided that we wanted to stick with an Alpine for the buck. That way, if we end up selling any of her offspring, they'll be purebloods and easier to sell. We are expecting that she'll have twins and we are hoping to have girls. Sass has at least a couple more years of kidding in her, so if we don't get girls, we'll try again. We are both excited (and a bit scared) about this whole process. We are tracking her estrus (heat) and when she shows signs again, we'll call the buck's owner and set up a date. If we do this in the next couple of weeks (which we hope to) that means she'll be kidding in March. How fun and terrifying all at once! We figure that even if we have no idea what we are doing, at least Sass does. She's an old hand at this and will hopefully be patient with us.

I checked on our little injured Seven last night. She appears to be healing well and seems no worse for the wear. She's going to remain in the 'hospital' crate in the garage until she's healed up. We are keeping her clean, fed and comfortable, so hopefully she'll heal quickly. While I'm sure she's happy to not be abused, I think she's lonely.

The siding is almost done! When I got home yesterday, I drove up to a house that pretty much looks complete. I'll try to take a few photos tonight. It looks good! The shingles look really nice with the boards and the area over the garage is way nicer than it was before. They also managed to extend the siding a little further down the foundation in the front, so it looks much more finished off. And the front porch area? It looks GREAT. These guys really did a nice job. We are both very impressed. I think we still have a final walk-through...and there are a few little things left to re-attach...but for the most part, it's complete. I think we may get to start painting this weekend!

So, for this weekend we have a few plans:

1) start painting
2) can more pears and make pearbutter

3) buy supplies to make large chicken run

4) buy chest freezer

5) season mild feta and make more

6) try making grape juice

We received notification from the apartment complex that we should see a check for our deposit soon. That's money that we had not budgeted on, so we are going to use it to buy the chest freezer. I also found some drawings/plans to make fence panels that hook together to create a mobile chicken run. I'm going to attempt getting the supplies (and maybe making a few) this weekend. I want to be able to give the chickens more room before we reintroduce Seven to the group.

Siding progress and growing chicks

I finally took more siding pictures last night. The front of the house (and the front porch) is not complete, but you can definitely see progress.

Here you can see the section we chose to do in 'shingles' as opposed to boards.

The big wood beam just above the post was replaced and it's now straight out from the house as it should be. You can also see where the ceiling was removed.

This is from the other side of the door. The big brick planter is gone - and that post will be covered to make it more attractive (when the ceiling goes back in).

The north side of the house - don't you just love the yellow 'accessories'?

The back of the house - we are thinking we need to replace that stoop which now looks terrible!

The back side of the house showing the deck (and the screwed up fencing we need to fix). Again, more yellow accessories including doors!!

And just for good measure, here are a few of the chicks. They are now 9 weeks old. We have at least 2 roosters (both White Leghorns) and they are just learning to crow. We also question the sex of a couple of our Ameraucanas. I could have sworn that one of them was making crowing sounds when I was taking these photos.

Roosters and chickens - the black/brown one in the far back was the one I could have sworn was starting to crow...

This is Bruno - he's the rooster with the reddest comb - he's also the best at crowing (so far).

And this is Maple. She's the smallest bird and easily the most friendly and least skittish of the group. Isn't she pretty?

Lastly, my applesauce and applebutter (which I had on toast for breakfast today!):

Applesauce made with three types of apples - one of which I know is Red Delicious. I love how it's got a slightly pink tint to it. It's quite tasty, too!

Applebutter - basically boiled down applesauce with sugar and spices added. It's amazing how much more flavorful this stuff is over the store-bought varieties!

Before photos

Can you believe it? Two posts in one day!!

Anyway, here are some before photos of the work we are having done by the siding company.

The front entrance: before.

The garage: before.

The north side: before.

The south side: before.

These are some photos of the sagging front entryway. We are paying extra to have this fixed correctly - and it appears to be a challenge!

The corner on the left is sagging due to water damage over time. The white posts were put in by the previous owners at our request because the old one had some serious dry rot going on.

Here you can kind of see it - the big thick beam holding up the roof is slanted down away from the house - it should be straight across!

You can see how this overhang is sagging away from the house a little better in this shot.

And the work begins! This is the south side of the house after they removed all the old siding. You can see how there was no vapor barier on the attic part. You can also clearly see the thick, solid cedar boars that our house was built with...

The first delivery of supplies - more was dropped off pretty much every day this week. And the HUGE dumpster now pretty much blocks this pile from view from this angle (it hadn't been delivered yet).

I'll take some photos tomorrow of what's done so far. Basically, there is siding up on all sides of the house except the front. They also started work on raising that sagging corner - it's propped up temporarily right now - but it already looks better!

Absenteeism

Wow, nice blogging, huh? I can't believe that it's already Friday and that I haven't written at all since last Saturday! Let's see...what's been going on...

Saturday night we went out with friends and had some food from my husband's heritage. It was a crawfish place and he was in hog-heaven! Boiled crawfish, seafood gumbo, crawfish etouffee, fried oysters and pecan pie... And in the car on the way home, he had a big ole grin on his face. Who knew that a culinary trip down memory lane would have such a positive affect on him. It was really cute!

On Sunday, we did some work around the house. We reversed roles from the previous weekend. I was outside mowing the lawn, trimming the fruit trees, picking up rotten apples, setting up a second compost pile, etc... and H was in the kitchen making mozzarella. He worked on it ALL day and unfortunately, it didn't turn out. I guess mozzarella is to my H what yogurt is to me? He'll get it eventually! At least we still have plenty of milk to work with! ;-)

This coming weekend, I'm going to make more milk stuff. Fudge, pudding and a Mexican caramel candy....I guess it's going to be a 'sweet' weekend! I will also try my hand at apple butter and pearsauce. We'll be picking more pears, finishing up the chicken coop and cleaning out the goat's lean-to. Oh, and admiring our house...

The siding company started work on the house on Tuesday. So far, they've finished the south side and the entire back side of the house. It looks like a totally different place! The siding is pre-primed, so it's kind of a washed out beige color...and it's an improvement over the yellow. I took a few before photos and one of a wall after the old siding was removed, so I'll post those this weekend. Luckily, the main walls of the house were built with big solid cedar boards (not pressboard like today's homes) and it is in good shape. We are very, very thankful for that! Everyday we come home to more of the house being done and we are both very excited to get started on painting. That'll have to wait until they are totally done because sawing the siding generates a lot of dust. We *may* start this weekend on painting the garage doors and the back doors - but that will depend on how the weather shapes up.

It's also been a busy week at work for both of us. My responsibilities are really picking up (about right - 6 months into the job now) and I've had to cut my lunch breaks short all week! H has had travel to complete and has been kept very busy during the day. All in all though, things are good. We managed only one commute by bicycle this week, but my plan is to increase that to two commutes for the next two weeks. I hope to be up to three times a week by the second week in October. I would be a lot more motivated to ride if the stupid Prius would sell. And what is with the gas prices lately? They just dropped again! We are now well below $3.50/gal. Now, of course, that's not cheap...but this trend is not conducive to the sale of a hybrid car! And I've heard that the trend is in the other direction on the east coast. I guess I shouldn't be complaining, should I?

Home improvements

The red triangle indicates where we will be putting in cedar shingle siding to add 'visual interest' to the front of our house. The rest of it will be 5.5 inch horizontal siding.

Yesterday we had our first meeting with the project manager who will be coordinating our siding replacement job. H was in training, so I left work early to meet the guy and get some questions answered. He did a walk through with our sales guy, and then they came and got me and we discussed the project.

Before I get into what they said, let me back up a bit. When we were buying this house, our home inspector discovered some dry rot on the front porch post. It was pretty obvious (we noticed it too) but we weren't sure how bad it was. As part of our agreement to buy the house, we asked that the post be replaced. They did the work, we saw that it was done, and we went ahead with the purchase.

Fast forward to yesterday and the first thing that the guys pointed out to me was that one side of the roof on the front of our house was lower than the other side. (the left side of the red triangle in the photo above) This affects how the siding will work...and more importantly, how the water will flow. I noticed a ton of water running over that edge (and not down the drain spout) when it rained hard a few weeks ago, but we figured that was due to a blocked gutter which we promptly cleared out. That whole side of the front porch roof needs to be raised up. When they replaced the post, they didn't 1) fix the main problem, or 2) at least level the roof like they should have. These guys are going to fix it for us, but I pray that it doesn't put us in the poor house. We are now expecting to pay 2 - 3K more than we had originally budgeted for this project. Luckily, we feel that these guys are good and that they'll do a thorough job. The other company we had do the bid for the siding replacement was the same company who did the post replacement work for the previous owners. We are VERY glad that we didn't opt to go with them for the siding!

As we have been doing improvements on this house, we are finding a lot of things that were done in a somewhat 'rigged' manner. My guess is that the previous homeowner fancied himself somewhat of a handiman, and did a lot of his own work. Unfortunately, a lot of it was done half-assed or incorrectly. We are now slowly correcting all the mistakes. So far, nothing has been major (prior to this)...but we both are fearful of what they'll find when they pull off the siding. My hope is that the original builders of the house did it right...and only the things that have been done since then are subject to this guy's apparent lack of knowledge. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

We expect a call sometime today to verify that they will be starting work next Monday. The project will probably also take a few extra days to complete now...but the sooner the better as we will still have to paint everything after they are done.

Scheduling bonus!

Poor Buddy - when he came for his breakfast this morning, he was dragging a bunch of branches behind him. The blackberry branches that H had given to them to eat had gotten tangled up in his fleece. He was nice and quiet and patient while I worked them out of his fleece. I hope he wasn't sleeping on those things all night! Poor little guy!

I can't believe it, but when the lady from the siding company called to set up our walk-through with the project manager, she told us that we were on the schedule for a week from Monday. Yes...our siding project starts on Sept 15th! This means that it should be done before the following weekend, so if the weather is nice - we'll be able to paint! I'm so incredibly excited. I was really, really worried that the rains would start before we could get this done. I now anticipate a nice cozy winter in a watertight home!

Speaking of winter, it was unseasonably cold this morning. My fingers were numb as I was setting up to milk Sass (at o'dark-thirty) and I felt bad when she jumped a bit as I started to milk! Then, on our bike ride in, I had only my fingerless biking gloves on (I didn't have time to properly search for the full fingered ones), so my hands were cold! In fact, my face was cold - it was that chilly - for the first 6 or so miles. Once the sun broke over the horizon, it was better. I'm constantly amazed at how much stronger the sun feels without a ton of humidity in the air to filter it. The sun here feels significantly stronger than it did in NC (and even in FL). The nice thing is that the shade is always cool here, too. I guess that's the dry air for you! I'm loving it! I think H was a little uncomfortable on the commute this morning. He doesn't like riding in the cold, like I do. I was born in Minnesota in February when it was -27F. H was born on the Mississippi gulf coast when it was in the 90's and super humid. Go figure.

Of the items I listed yesterday, guess how much I got done last night? None! By the time I got home, had dinner, cleaned up, and then got everything ready for leaving early this morning, I had no time. Of course, wasting an hour watching Roddick play in the US Open didn't help the schedule any. In fact, tonight, since it's the Williams' sisters that are playing each other, I'm not even going to plan to do anything but have dinner and clean up. A night off sounds like heaven.

Blackberry recipes

We have had a lot of blackberries in the fridge since last weekend, and it was time I didn't something more permanent with them. First order of business was to make more jam. I'd crushed 5 cups worth when we picked them, but didn't have time to do anything with them all week. I had ordred a food mill/sauce maker last week and it arrived yesterday. I decided to give it a shot with the jam. My plan was to use it for half the berries and use crushed berries for the other half. I ran most of my crushed berries through the mill and it produced about half the sauce as I had expected. So I added more berries until I had enough. With the exception of one minor accident due to my poor first attempt to attach the mill to the counter top (that caused much of the highly staining liquid to splatter!), it went well.

When I had enough sauce, I made jam using the same recipe I'd used the first time. It made 5 pints of seedless jam. All 5 jars sealed perfectly and they are quietly resting in the pantry downstairs.

Then I set about using the balance of the berries. I pulled out a blackberry crisp recipe that I'd saved. It was super easy to make and it tasted absolutely amazing!

We worked together to harvest the last of the apples off the tree that has been dropping them like crazy. We picked about a bushel's worth. I set about sorting them and about 2/3rds of them went into the basement for storage for now. The last third is going to go towards applesauce. As soon as I have time, I'll give applesauce a shot. I may wait until I get more of another type of apple, but we'll see. This tree was the one of all of them with the least amount of apples, so we will be up to our ears, eventually. And the pears? We have way, way, way more of those!

Yesterday, we had the guy from the siding company by again. We signed the paperwork and got ourselves on the schedule. I'll have an official date sometime this week, but we expect it to be about 2 or 3 weeks. When I knew that the guy was coming over, it served as a catalyst to move 'cleaning the house' higher on my priority list. I felt like I'd really accomplished something when both bathrooms and the living room were spotless. I love having a clean house!

Oh, one last little update - I MADE YOGURT!! Yes, you read that right. I successfully made yogurt this morning! I actually followed the same procedure I'd tried one other time, but for whatever reason, it worked today. The bad news? I didn't like it much. Figures, huh? I decided to make yogurt cheese out of it. I strained it through my cheese cloth and then threw it in the fridge. I'm going to mix in some garlic and chives and make a cheese spread out of it.

Taking the plunge

This is a mock up of our new paint choices (from Behr.com website). The walls and trim are about right, but the door color looks more brown than it should. It's more a deep red in real life. The darker blue will be for both the shutters and the deck (we don't have a picket fence).

So, we've decided to do the siding work before winter. We have been able to make the necessary funds available and we have set up an appointment to get our siding project on the schedule for this fall. The company will complete the siding job (including the weather proofing) and then we will do the paint job immediately afterward. We are also going to keep the old siding that is in the best condition to use on our little garden shed. There are boards that are rotted and a few walls need replacing. The old siding on the addition part of the house is newer than the rest of it, so hopefully it'll be usable. The remainder of everything they remove from the house goes to recycling. We will generate as little trash/landfill as possible in this process.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that opening up these walls does not reveal dry rot or missing insulation that will cost us even more to remedy!

Yesterday I discovered that we were making a few rookie mistakes when it came to our chickens. The first is that when we went to buy additional feed (after we finished the first bag), we bought 'layer crumble'. They were already eating 'crumble' (as opposed to pellets) so we figured that was ok. The 'crumble' part was not the problem. 5 week old chicks should NOT be eating layer feed! Ooops!! We made an emergency run to the feed store last night and picked up another bag of the grower/starter feed. The layer feed has added calcium and other ingredients that are not necessary for chicks and that can actually harm them if they are not producing eggs yet. I hope that a week of the wrong feed won't do long term damage. We put the balance of it into bins and will save it for later. They shouldn't go on layer until we've seen the first eggs...

The other rookie mistake was adding perches to the 'run' part of the coop. By putting them outside the coop, I am encouraging them to roost outside and that is not a habit we want them to pick up. Once they get to free-range, we want them to WANT to go back into the coop at night. It's safer from predators in there than in the run part. Plus, if they get used to roosting outside, they may end up roosting in trees and we can't have that.

The things we are doing right? Keeping them locked in the coop/run/tractor all the time for the first couple of weeks. This allows them to feel safe and it makes this spot 'home' for them. This way, when we do let them out, that's where they will naturally go when it gets dark or when they get scared. We are also doing right by the heat lamp. Basically, we turn it on only on the nights where it'll be cold (less than 65 degrees). The chicks are almost fully feathered, so they are close to not needing it at all. I've noticed that when the light is not on, they tend to sleep all in a pile in the corner of the coop. That's normally ok except that our coop has no bottom, so they are killing the grass in that one spot. We are going to put some type of bottom on it eventually, but until then, I want them to sleep on the perches!

Scheduling difficulties

Another picture of the awful state of our siding and the lousy paint job

Last night we got a second estimate to have our siding replaced. To go with the Hardi plank siding (same as the first estimate) the cost with the local company was the SAME. We even asked him to run an estimate with vinyl siding just to see...and it only saved us $1K. I was thankful because I really, really would rather have the Hardi board stuff. So now, since this is way more than we had planned, we have to decide if we want to do this now, before winter hits...or do we wait until next spring giving us a little time to set aside some money. I have a feeling that we'll be waiting.

I did not get new pictures taken of the chicks, so I'll do that at the end of this week and call them the 5-week old pictures. I did find out this morning that they are using the perches in the coop and that makes me happy. I also stuck a couple of wooden dowels through the chicken wire on the run part of their home so that they had outside perches to play on. They use them that way all the time! We just have to make sure that they don't perch there at night or a possum is likely to grab one and that would not be pretty.

I've received a lot of emails from friends, family and even strangers about how impressed people are with what we are doing. Before anyone starts thinking that this is all cute animals and delicious country cooking...I figure that I'd better reveal a few of the not so picture perfect sides of this endeavor.

This morning, I set the alarm for 5 am so that I could get up, get the goat milked, feed and water all the animals, get something to eat and pack a lunch in time to leave at 6:30 am to bike to work. H got up at 6 and I was still no where near being able to leave. The goat wasn't ready to be milked at o'dark-thirty, so that took longer than expected. The cat was way too interested in the chickens this morning, so I had to be extra careful when feeding them and changing their water - so that took extra time. Then when I got inside, I discovered that we had no more glass jars for milk. They were all in use! I had to shift some milk into freezer bags and sanitize the jars before being able to strain today's milk. Then I realized that I'd defrosted meat for dinner, but I hadn't marinated it yet. I had to do that before work, knowing that I had a late conference call tonight and wouldn't be home in time to do that if we wanted to eat before 10 pm.

I ended up telling H to go on without me. I finished up my morning routine with tears in my eyes. If 5 am isn't early enough to be able to ride to work, what is? 4:30 am? So that means at most I can get 6 hours of sleep a night? I can't go to bed any earlier...I've got things to do at night, too. Maybe a 3 hour commute is just too much in conjunction with a farm and a full time job. Sometimes I wonder if this is all even possible. Am I kidding myself??

Anyway, as I was noticing the gorgeous day dawning over the goat pasture, I decided on a compromise. I made a double sized lunch, packed an extra work outfit and my biking clothes in my pannier and threw my bike in the back of the car. I'm going to bike home from work today after my conference call, and bike back in to work tomorrow morning. Then I can drive the car back home tomorrow afternoon. As much as I'd rather ride a full commute with company (my H), getting to do it half on one day and half on the next is better than nothing.

On Sunday, our ride started out stressful because I felt that taking 2-3 hours out of my weekend time for 'fun' is a bad idea. That's just wrong, right? But there is so much to do, and just not enough time in which to do it. The bathrooms need cleaning. The dining room table is still piled high with boxes. There are piles of broken down boxes everywhere. There are stains on the carpet from the move that still need steam cleaning. I have boxes of clothing lining the back hall. The guest room bed is piled taller than me with misc stuff that needs to be organized and put away. The piano is serving as a holding place for random things that probably all need to go into a yard sale that is still weeks away from happening. The laundry room is in chaos with things collecting there that don't belong there. The basement room is only about 1/2 done and the rest of the basement is a sea of boxes, 6 deep in some places. The garage is piles of stuff with walkways cleared through it to get to the things we need (and there is no way even one car could fit in there right now)...the shed is a pile of garden supplies in complete disarray. The lean-to only has 2/3 of the roof shingled and the chicken coop has no nesting boxes yet. The yard is only 1/3 mowed, the row garden needs weeding, the apples need picking, there is wood and oil to be ordered yet, and the siding is in sad, sad shape. All this is slowly eating away at this 'type A' personality of mine. It does not sit well with me - I pray that I can keep myself in some semblance of calm until we have time to work through all this stuff. Clearly things are not the idyllic picture I often present here...

Maybe someday I'll get this all down to a better routine/science. It is possible to do it all, right? That's what my mom always told me. "You can do anything you set your mind to"...well damn it, I intend to prove it (eventually).

The buffalo return

It looks like Monday's are the day that the buffalo get access to the field behind our house. I got up, went to feed the dogs, and while I was giving them water, Maggie ran outside for a quick pee before breakfast. She immediately started barking like mad. It was the 'hey, something is out here' bark, too. I looked, and sure enough, a HUGE prehistoric looking buffalo was just on the other side of the fence not 25 ft from where Sass and Buddy were munching. Neither of them seemed too concerned. I went about my inside work and by the time I'd headed out to do the milking, the buffalo had moved on. I am thankful that they all seemed to live quietly together this time. I've been terrified of Sass hurting herself in our absence should the buffalo reappear while we were at work. I guess their excitement and running around the last time was what upset Sass the most. If they are calm, she appears calm. Kind of like the dog whisperer, huh?

Last night, H ordered plans to build our own cheese press. We want to be able to make some of the hard cheeses, so a press is necessary. I still have plans to make feta, I just need to find time. This coming weekend, I'm taking Friday off. No reason other than my desire to have 4 days off in a row with a good chance of getting a lot done AND getting in some fun bike rides. Maybe I'll be able to make some cheese then.

Tonight I'm leaving early to meet the rep from the second siding company. This company is the same company that has done some work on our house when the previous owners had it. I'm really curious to see what they come back with for an estimate.

Tonight I'll be making more blackberry jam, and perhaps picking some more apples. I'll also be uploading all the photos off my camera and updating the last few posts in this blog! I will need to take and post 5 week old chick pictures on Wednesday, too.

Home improvement sticker shock

A 'before' siding photo

In order to ensure that our house will stay solid and strong for the next quarter century, we have been working towards improved siding. Our original plan was to replace a few boards of the existing siding, sand it all, and then repaint it. Upon further investigation, we discovered that it's not in very good shape at all. We set up a couple of appointments to have estimates for replacement done. The first one was this morning.

This company is top rated in the country. They do an extremely thorough job including sealing the house prior to applying the siding. This is very important in a wet environment like the PNW. If we want this job to last, it has to be done right.

The estimate for replacing all the siding was about double what we had expected! We will have to do some serious priority rearrangement in order to afford it. On Monday we have an appointment with another company to do the same job, so we'll see how that goes. It's a really, really difficult decision for us because of the price. We know this will GREATLY improve the value, life and appearance of the house. If we were planning to sell it, we'd do this in a heartbeat because we KNOW it'll pay for itself. But, since we plan on staying, it's hard to qualify the value when buying this now will be a financial burden. We also have to decide ASAP. This is becaue this company is about 5-6 weeks out in scheduling right now. If we get it done in that time frame, that may (or may not) leave us a weekend or two of clear weather in which to paint it before the rains start. We HAVE to get it painted before winter. Decisions, decisions...

Last night we had some friends come by to meet the animals and see the house. It was kind of last minute, so they had to see the house in all it's neglect. How embarrassing! At least we had one room unpacked and the kitchen was clean. We then all went out to a local place for sushi. Yum!

Prior to our company's arrival yesterday, we'd set about picking some of the apples on the one tree that is dropping them. H worked on picking up all the fallen ones while I climbed a step stool to pick them off the tree. I got about half a bag full before we had to call it quits. I couldn't reach them anymore anyway. I need a taller ladder and a fruit-picking thingamajig.

Our first (of many) apple harvest.

I put most of the apples in a cotton mesh bag and hung them in the basement pantry. I threw a few in the fridge for general eating and I washed, peeled and sliced 7 of them to make a baked apple french toast recipe I found online. I used fresh french bread, seven apples of unknown variety (good baking type), 3.5 cups of fresh goat milk, 8 eggs (from the store...boo), sugar and misc seasonings and spices. I assembled it all last night and this morning I threw it in the oven prior to starting my morning chores. It was done baking right about when we were ready for breakfast and YUM!!! It was delicious! (Good thing, too...since it made enough to feed an army!). The recipe is here: Apple & Spice Baked French Toast

Delicious! It reheats really well, too.