This last weekend, we participated in the Apple Butter making extravaganza at my Pastor’s house. My Pastor’s father drove to Pennsylvania to pick up 18 bushels of Northern Spy Apples. On Friday night, a group of hardy volunteers including my Pastor’s eight children, peeled, cored, and chopped all the apples. Saturday morning at 0700, they started two fires on the front lawn under two giant copper kettles. The kettles bubbled all day with butter, apples, and cinnamon. We Manrys arrived at 1445 just after the sugar was added to the mix. Throughout the entire day, family members and volunteers stoked the fires and used long wooden paddles to stir the Apple Butter. Each Apple Butter stirrer was encouraged to sing the Apple Butter Song.
“Twice around the sides and once through the middle. Twice around the sides and once through the middle. Twice around the sides and once through the middle. That’s the way we stir the Apple Butter. Apple Butter. Apple Butter. That’s the way we stir the Apple Butter. Twice around the sides and once through the middle. That’s the way we stir the Apple Butter.”
Mr. Rupert Stirs the Apple Butter
This song was enthusiastically sung over and over and over with harmony and good humor. I loved it. Each member of the Manry family took a turn at stirring and Gabe and Zeke are still singing the Apple Butter Song. Once the Apple Butter was declared ready, a giant assembly line formed up. Pots of Apple Butter were run over to the table, funneled into jars, sprinkled with cinnamon and lidded. Gabe and Zeke worked the cinnamon sprinkling and Josiah and Abby turned the jar lids in place. The sheer amount of Apple Butter was ten times the scale of canning strawberry jam with my Mom. The amount of jars filled was tremendous. Once the jars were filled, everyone grabbed a potato roll and scraped it across the sides and bottom of the copper kettle for a snack of warm Apple Butter.
This entire event took place in the front yard and garage of a suburban home, yet the sense of community transported me back to a small Northern Minnesota town. We didn’t make Apple Butter, but jam or pasties or buns or popcorn balls or cookies or watermelon boats. Everyone came together to chop, cook, and eat and in the process, a community forms. New Life COMMUNITY Church…I’m glad I’m a part of it.