Lichte Family Apple Butter

If you read any of my posts (minus my overload of week by week of our new home) you will see that family and family traditions (not Hank William Jr. style) are very important to me. It's how I was raised and I am blessed/lucky enough to have married into a family that is just the same.

Which brings me to the Lichte Family Apple Butter Weekend. It's a tradition that I have heard a lot about over the past couple of years, but somewhere along the line, this tradition stopped. You know how it is, life gets busy and you can think of 101 other things that need to be done, you vow to start up again next year, next year comes and it never happens. That's the way Apple Butter Weekend has been for the past 8 years.

Until this year...

We took off work, we cancelled plans, Aunt Sarah and her daughter Samantha even flew in from Montana. It was everything I had always hoped it would be, it was everything that I hope fills one weekend in October once a year for the next 50 + years...

And it all starts with this woman. My farmers grandma - Grandma Lichte....

While we are all blessed that she is still with us, she suffers from the crappiest (for a lack of better word) disease... Alzheimer's. The mind is such a beautiful thing and rest assured, hers

is no different.

She is my version of this all American Farm Wife. The kind that brings her farmer lunches and dinners in the field. Raises kids with little help from others, does farm chores, isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, creates memories with her grandchildren.  The kind of woman that holds a family together. The kind I always hope to be. I will always wish that I had a chance to actually get to know her - to learn from her. I will always feel that she could have taught me so much. We may be from generations 60 years apart, but she had a farmer and I have a farmer, so I can't help but think that we could just be two farmers wives sharing stories of planting, harvest, and the day to day farm life. After all, it's because of this woman, and sacrifices from her and her farmer that I am able to live the life that I have... It's a beautiful one.

So as a farm wife (for all of about 4 months) who bring her farmer Subway more than a pot roast (Subway 57 Pot Roast 0) I can't promise to live up to her, but I promise you that I am certainly going to die trying.

Take a moment to check out some of my very favorite pictures from Lichte Apple Butter Weekend 2014.

If your family used to have a tradition that you loved and like our apple butter and somewhere along the way things stopped... I strongly encourage you to start it up again. You won't be sorry.

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