What would you like this morning on your toast? Well having been caught out when offered Jello,jelly or Jam I usually throw them in a tist by saying "Vegemite (only because they recognise the name I would never use it in preference to Mighty Mite,Marmite etc but only Australian's will recognise the Nationalist approach of never supporting Vegemite)"

That particular spead not being available the cupboard was bare!

I offered assistance "Why don't I go out an pick some of those lovely crab apples from the tree in the backyard and you (well maybe us) can make some crab apple jelly".

That said on Saturday afternoon , a fine sunny get out in the sun day, I took the step ladder and harvested I estimate some 16kgs of crab apples. No mean feat given the size of the average crab apple between 1-3cms and many were located over 3m up in the tree.

I am sure my hosts were delighted to receive at the kitchen this amount of fruit to be duly processed.

Processing some 1000+ little apples soon became a task that consumed no small amount of time.

Proocessing meant washing each and every apple,then the real task begins.

So by Monday after lunch it was all hands on deck,the rear sunny deck that us, as some 8 kgs were still in dire need of processing or rotting. Again a lovely day to sit in the sun with Croc's "You call that a knife"and patiently cut off the blossom end, not dropping and staining the deck either. Then that "doesn't want to leave stem "had to be cut out and each apple carefully cut into quarters. I safe carefully as that is a sharp knife I was given.

Ernie and I had a great bonding talk well for the first hour then the conversation dried up, our hostess quickly came out of the cool house to see if those man acting like Mad English Dogs in the hot afternoon sun"had slit each others throat but she need not have worried we were just enjoying our 4000th cut well we had long sense lost count.

Not to belittle the hostesses role as once the fruit was cut into the wee hours of next two days she laboured over the hot range,measuring out cuo after cup of cut fruit, adding sugar ,boiling but not over boiling no burning the valuable liquids that once were whole apples as the extraction of that valuable liquid took place.

Mind you that once boiled it is necessary to strain the mass pulp as only the liquid is needed for jelly and of course balancing a straining net and adding new pulp can be messy at the least.

Slowly but surely the strained liquid began to amount to quantities that will eventually fill the first jar,only 47 more jars to go.

Finally Monday and Ernie & I had that marathon session to cut the last 8kgs but poor lady Lee Ellen is now only half way towards the intended target but as the photo's show the toast was spread with öur"home made Crab Apple Jelly and boy does it taste just as good as it looks.

So if you would like to taste some please arrive in Calgary by late August 2018 as the next crop will be ready to harvest or why not make your own so many homes & parks have crab apple trees and the fruit just goes to waste so often.