Apples and Cider

It's a good year for apples. The trees are loaded.

Heather did a lot of climbing and eating.

 We filled this tub and then some.

 Heather was a great help washing the apples. We washed them in a very diluted bleach solution and then gave them a good rinse with plain water.

 Joanie gave me a beautiful cider press for my birthday last month. We've been looking forward to using it.

The first step is to smash up and grind up all the apples. Wayne's friend, Ben, was around to help out.

We had invited Joanie over to see her gift in action, but she was busy all day with the cemetery walk. Sounds like it was very successful!

I think we made a little more than 3 gallons. We let Ben take home a gallon. He was a good help. It's a lot of work to make apple cider. He never complained even though it took almost all afternoon.

 Everybody had a taste. It tasted really good and was refreshing after all that hard work.

Thank you so much for such a beautiful gift Joanie. There are still plenty of apples on the trees so I'm sure we'll get to make a lot more cider this fall.