cider pressing

Every Fall we press apple cider with a big, old apple press borrowed from a neighbor. Family and friends come out for a day of "appling" and socializing, going home with a few gallons of fresh cider.This year we had about 10 varieties of apples. The best cider is made with a blend of different types of apples.

My job was sorting and washing. I mixed several varieties together in every sink-full.

Next, bad spots are cut out, and large apples cut in half. Most of our apples are smallish, so we didn't have to do too much cutting.

Here Nita is tossing the apples into the hopper. The hopper funnels the apples into the hog, which roughly grinds the apples into small bits to prepare them for pressing. It is loud, and while the hog is going, there's not much conversation. The apple bits fall down into a large, wooden basket.

When the basket is about 3/4 full, we slide it forward under the press. Here Kether tightens the press down. Rather than ratchet the press down all at once, it is more efficient to wind it down until juice runs out, let it sit for a bit, then wind it down some more, repeating several times.

Ambrosial nectar drips. We filter the fresh cider through cheesecloth to remove the chunks of apple. Most of these jars will go into the freezer, to be enjoyed all year. What doesn't fit in the freezer must be consumed fresh within a couple of weeks. Some years we make hard cider, but decided not to this year. We had a few pears, so the last batch pressed was pear/apple, and that was the best! All together, this year we got 29 gallons of cider. The apple crop was slim this year; last year we had enough apples to press over 50 gallons of cider!

After the juice is pressed out, this apple pulp remains. It goes onto the compost pile..the worms love it!

Now I'm sitting here writing this on a chilly, grey, blustery day; looking at these pictures, I can still smell the apples and feel that sunshine on my face...hmmm..methinks a cup of hot, mulled cider is in order.

First Spring Sun Tea

Today it is sunny enough to make sun tea! Yay. I may not have even thought of it, but our well water is tasting strange today, and I was sooo thirsty.I decided it was a great opportunity to use up some of last year's dried herbs. Does anyone else have the problem of working so hard to "put up" the harvest in various ways, only to find years-old jars of pickles languishing in the larder, or old, ice-encrusted bags of berries hidden in the corner of the freezer? Don't get me wrong; a high-light of my life is being able to eat food I've grown and processed all year 'round. Sometimes it's just hard to know how much to put up, or I just get tired of playing with my food. Sure I could whip up some dynamite mead out of all those old frozen berries, but it just gets to be too much, sometimes. I am constantly amazed at the abundance I live with and am surrounded by in my North American culture. It doesn't seem fair. In the meantime, I'll work on using up those 2008 dried herbs, before they get too dry and musty. This batch of tea got yerba buena, mint, oats, skullcap, stevia, a beebalm flower, lemon grass, and roasted chicory. All grown here on the farm, except for the chicory, which I like to add to give the tea some body. There is wild chicory growing everywhere out here, and once I did trundle all over with bucket and spade, digging up whatever roots would hand themselves over to me. I roasted it up and ground it, and my oh my, was that the bitterest brew I ever did taste! Undrinkable! Perhaps I should try again, at another time of year? I'd love to be able to harvest my own chicory! The lemon grass I used was fresh! Yes! I actually overwintered the pot of lemon grass in the house this year. She tolerates no freeze, or even near-to-freezing temperatures, so past half-hearted attempts at overwintering in the unheated greenhouse have failed. This plant happily sat out the winter in the house on the floor, next to the glass door. She got a little grumpy during bouts of super-cold weather (no doubt feeling that draft through the glass), but she's looking good. I won't put her outside until late in May. The tea is quite tasty; it only took a few hours to brew in the strong spring sun. Just a few leaves of stevia give it a slight sweet edge. I'm hoping the skullcap and oats will help Rick a bit with his allergies. The next batch will get nettles, too.Here's to ice-cold home-grown tea and sunny days!