So...to everyone's disappointment I'm not going to post a recipe today...instead I'm going to post about how many apples you actually need for things! This is a nice little guide that can also be found in Lapacek's Orchard, Appletizing Recipe's.

I snapped a few pictures of the adventure’s that happened at the orchard last night. The night started out with moving a rather large rock from one spot by the red building to a garden by where the old house sat. It was a very big rock that took a large tractor, a chain, and the skidster…what fun…

During the rock moving adventure’s grandma and Capri planted some flowers… Grandpa and Capri look at a quote together… Cedi decides to join them :) Jared had the lucky job of saw-cutting a concrete slab.

He’s a little sore this morning.

This recipe caught my eye so I hope it's good!

From the WAGA cookbook:

Spiced Apple Bagel
Beverly Raatz, Wisconsin
1999 Finalist

3 T light cream cheese, softened
1 honey-wheat or plain bagel split
3 T chopped apples
3 tsp. raisins
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Spread cream cheese on bagel. Top with apples and raisins. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, sprinkle over top. Place on a baking sheet; broil 6-8 inches from the heat or 2-3 minutes or until hot and bubbly. 240 calories

Sounds super yummy to me! Nice way to spruce up that bagel of yours. Have a great Sunday!

YES! You read the title right! It's time to go out hunting for MORELS! I had a meeting on Monday night and my hubby surprised me by having a bag of MORELS on the table when I got home! YUMMY!

The next day we went hunting for even more!

The orchard was in full bloom this past weekend. It seemed to warm up long enough to dress the girl's in matching dresses and snap a few pictures. Cedi was a little hesitant to cooperate at first but promise of chocolate cake helped fix that!

Lots has been happening at the Kroncke Road Orchard this spring.  We’re preparing to move the store over to our place in 2010 (don’t panic…more details to come later…).  Before we finished the hoop house, the Amish came down and put up an addition to our shed.  We will now have plenty of space to do everything we need to at our place….

Frank is in the skidster boring holes for the posts to go in. 

Grandma and Grandpa were our inspectors. 

 

Cedi had a picnic lunch with them on the first full day of construction!

They’re really getting the shed up…I think it took them only about 3 1/2 days when it was all said an done.    

Grandpa keeping an eye on thing.  Making sure everyone stays on task.           I just realized i don’t have a picture of the project completed…I’ll have to get one of those taken and up soon!

It’s done though…we officially have one ‘motha’ of a shed… 40’ x 120’!  (and a lean on the front!)

I'm going to feature a recipe today that comes from the WAGA Cookbook - we will have a limited quantity of these for sale at the orchard this fall.

I chose this one for my friend Kiki who loves apple pancakes!

Spicy Apple Pancake with Cider Sauce
-Dick and Wendy Dart, Maiden Rock

2 cups Bisquick
3/4 cup McIntosh apples
1 egg
1-1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1-1/3 cup milk

Mix all ingredients together. Measure 1/4 cup onto hot griddle.

Sauce
1 cup sugar
2 T cornstarch
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 cups apple cider
2 T. lemon juice
1/4 cup butter or margarine

Mix first 4 ingredients. Stir in cider and lemon juice. Cook stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in butter.

The Friends of the Poynette Library enlisted local artists to help with this fabulous fundraising event.

Here were our instructions:

- Sign out a birdhouse (or build one yourself)

- Donate your time, materials and creativity on behalf of the Friends.

- Decorate the birdhouse with tiles, paints, stencils, pebbles, straw, etc.

- Return it to the library on or before May 14, 2009

I received a friendly ‘reminder’ on Monday night that my birdhouse was due back at the library no later than Thursday! I had completely forgotten about it so I was very happy for the call. I had shown up the library late and there were only a few small birdhouses left to decorate and I knew I wouldn’t have time to come up with my own (at least this year…I already have a few ideas if they do it again next year…) so I took a small one home.

Wednesday was ‘Grandma Day’ for the girls so I finally had some time to paint my birdhouse. I painted it with a fabulous mixture of dark blue and celery colored paint. I then used modge podge to attach this fabulous bird print from a piece of fabric onto the top of the houses’ roof…of course I added some glitter to my modge podge…it wouldn’t be my birdhouse without that! If you want to see more pictures of this birdhouse click HERE!

My mother-in-law, Diane, was a bit more ambitious and creative than I! She painted this fabulous apple gourd and made it into a birdhouse! I think it looks fantastic. If I were you would I would keep your eyes peeled this fall for some more of these at our Orchard store!

Before I picked the girls up, I delivered our birdhouses to the library. Here are some pictures of the other’s that people decorated!

These birdhouses will be displayed and ON SALE on May 15th and 16th at the Friends of the Library Annual Plant and Book Sale.

This sale will be in the Presbyterian Church Basement at 224 N. Main St, Poynette, WI. Friday from 8-5 and Saturday from 8-2.

All the proceeds go to benefit the Poynette Area Public Library.

Thank you for supporting your Friends of the Library in this unique endeavor!

My parents came for a visit yesterday and of course, we put them to work! We managed to get the frame work all up for the hoop house over our raspberries with their help and Frank and Diane's help. Jared just has to finish spacing and tightening on one of the upper lines of the house and it will be ready to have the plastic put on next year!