Gourmet Triple Dipped Caramel Apples for your Valentine

It was a good day on the farm today. I hemmed some jeans this morning and with the beautiful weather this afternoon I putzed around outside a little bit. I shot my gun, checked out the pens, and wished I had a horse here to ride. With all this spring-like weather I can't wait to get things ready for a horse. The main event however, was doing a test run of these gourmet caramel apples. I have decided to do a little Valentine's Day enterprise of making & selling them.

Here is the full description:

"Granny smith apple smothered in two layers of soft caramel, covered in chocolate, dipped in your choice of topping and drizzled with white chocolate. Delivered on Valentines Day in clear wrapping tied with a ribbon. Includes a decorative tag so it is ready to gift."

I got my caramel making technique down, but my presentation needs a little work. I am going to Fargo this weekend and I will get some more supplies for packaging in order to make them really cute and fun for Valentines Day. They will be $10 each, which is a good deal. Planning to make a limited amount and deliver them in the Carrington area on Tuesday, Feb 14. If there are people from out west who would like to order some, I could probably make an early batch and bring them the weekend of the 11th when I'll be back home. If you are interested in ordering a candy apple please let me know via facebook or email.

My belly hurts from the large amount of sugar I've had today. After my sugar high I think its time for a crash.

Ms. Fixit

This past weekend I was bound and determined to fix something. Around this house, there is no shortage of things that need fixing. After a couple hours of unsuccessfully tinkering with the garage door opener, I moved on to the water softener. It has not worked since we moved in and being new to home ownership we had no idea where to even start troubleshooting.

The problem seemed to be there was no water flowing into the unit. I decided to completely disconnect it to investigate. I asked my husband to come help because filled with salt, the unit is quite heavy. We followed the pipework around our basement to try to figure out what was going on and realized a bypass valve going to the softener was shut off. Luckily, this was an easy fix.

So there we are, softener disconnected, determining the push of a button will send the water supply for our whole house gushing through this pipe. I put my hand on the bypass valve. My husband, directly in the line of fire, says "don't push that." Which to me is like saying "I dare you to push that." I couldn't resist-I pushed the button. A DIRECT HIT!

So I fixed the water softener and soaked my husband. Mission: accomplished. :)