Apple Pies!

Several weeks ago we received our order forms for apple pies. This was a fundraiser for the school and as an incentive this year, if you ordered 12 (either for yourself or along with other orders you got) you got a free pie. So Shantel went around the neighbourhood (by car as there's no one really close enough to walk to) and with her rehearsed line of "our school is selling apple pies. Would you like one? They are $8 each!!" we got 9 orders. Most people can't resist a cute sweet little 5 year old doing the asking. So along with my 7 pies I ordered for myself, we made the 12 quota and I got 8 pies for the price of 7! Ha, their little incentive worked. They had pie orders coming out of their ears. So Monday night at 7pm in the school kitchen, a bunch of about 28 ladies did their thing to make apple pies. 

Apple pies is a big thing here. First the apples need picking. So the previous Friday, a group of ladies went to a local orchard and picked heaps of apples. And then on the Monday night, there were various jobs. The apples were peeled and sliced by those fancy apple peelers (that usually work but are a nuisance when they don't!) and then other ladies would quarter the apples. The apples were then mixed with the sugar/flour/cinnamon mix and dumped into bought pies bases and then covered with the pastry top. These were then fluted (sealed) and pricked and placed in bags, sealed and boxed with a label. By 10 o'clock we had completed 320 pies!

The following day, we carried on. By 2pm we completed another 270 pies making a total of 590 pies! During the day, the completed pies were also being immediately delivered or picked up in order to ensure freezer space for those that couldn't take their pies right away.

It was really great seeing all this take place. There's a real sense of community spirit. Because the government doesn't support the school at all, every penny is raised by school fees ($850 per month per family) or through fundraising. So everyone is really involved in helping with the fundraising. Very nice to see.

The peelers and cutters 

Fluting and bagging. The buckets along the window are full of the sugar/flour/cinnamon mix

Tuesday: the pie dishes getting filled and fluted

More peelers and cutters

A finished pie which we had for dessert. Delicious!

And then on Wednesday late afternoon we had two visitors! Mr and Mrs W & A Geurts were in the area and found out where we lived and came to say hello. We visited for a while and it was really nice catching up with them.

We have a long weekend coming up, and we plan to take Sunni to Deception Pass from Thursday afternoon to Monday. More on that in the next post!

Thanks for visiting!