Cider Time and Other Adventures

Sunrise on Saturday

Despite the chilly weather during most of the week, I managed to get a lot done. I always feel an increasingly urgent need to prepare for winter as the days grow shorter and colder. On Tuesday I was not in school and I spent the day in a working frenzy. First I tackled the barn. We have a problem with sparrows getting into the barn – a dozen or more of them. Due to the way it was built, there were plenty of places they could get in and they were eating the chickens’ food and pooping all over everything. So I took some bird netting and a staple gun and spent several hours blocking all the ways they could get in. I had to climb and crawl and stoop and the whole time I kept wishing I had tackled this project when Josiah was still home. But I survived and I think the barn is sparrow-proof now. When I finished, I swept all the sparrow poop out of the upper level and did some general tidying. After that I closed all the windows in the lower barn (they are always screened I just closed the glass panes) for the winter.

I like working at the barn. The chickens are good company. They are always so interested in everything I’m doing. Most of them are molting right now and there are feathers everywhere. They all look awful. The rooster looks especially ridiculous. He’s a Polish Crested and usually has a nice hairdo, but now it’s all bedraggled and full of pin feathers. When they’re all done molting they will be beautiful in their new plumage.

One of the Light Brahma hens molting.

The Polish Crested rooster with no tail and a bad hairdo.

With the barn done, I moved on to my next project – cleaning out flower beds and the vegetable garden. I cut down the dead asparagus, thinking all the while of the happy day when I’ll see it again, some day next spring. Then I pulled up the rest of the dead flowers in the long bed. It is mostly empty now and looks very flat.

I also worked in the orchard. I put trunk guards on the smaller trees and took inventory of all the trees. The trees are bare now, of fruit and leaves – except one. In my orchard I have several crab apple trees. One of them, the Dolgo crab, gives me wonderful fruit I use to make jelly, but the rest of the crabs are just for pollinating the other apple trees. They also are beautiful. One tree in particular, the Wayman crab apple, is especially beautiful. When it blooms in the spring it is a billowing cloud of white blossoms. In the fall when its leaves fall, it is covered with tiny bright red apples. They are too small and tart to use, but the birds love them. By Christmas the tree will be bare of fruit.

The Wayman crab apple.

Wayman crab apples.

Thursday morning we awoke to find it raining on top of a light crusting of soggy snow. The snow didn’t last and I was glad for that. I’m not ready for snow yet. The day remained cold and rainy. Sometimes the rain was very heavy. In the afternoon we had to go out into the wet and gloom to take our apples to be pressed. Our Amish friend, Levi Borkholder, has a gas powered hydraulic cider press in the basement of his house. He runs a brisk business in the fall making cider. We’ve taken our apples to him for several years now. We dropped our apples off and on Friday morning I went back to pick up the cider. He was just finishing up the last few gallons when I got there. We stood around and talked about apples for a while. I love to talk about apples. When we were done, his little boys helped carry the jugs up to the car. Our 20 buckets of apples gave us 34 gallons of cider. That should last us for a while.

The Borkholder house and Cider Mill.

Twenty buckets of apples.

Levi's cider press.

Thirty-four gallons of cider.

We worked on some of the more tedious harvesting jobs last week – shelling corn and beans. Hannah helped me do both jobs. The corn turned out pretty good. After we shelled it, we parched it to dry it out a bit more. We filled 3 half gallon jars with kernels that we will grind as we need them. The beans were disappointing. I planted black beans this year. I pulled the plants up weeks ago and they’ve been drying on the back porch. After shelling the pods, we ended up with about three cups of dry beans, enough for one meal. I guess I’ll have to plant more next year.

Shelled dry corn.

On Saturday we drove up to Jamestown, New York, to visit the Lucy-Desi Museum. The Pisters – Stacey’s sister Audrey and her husband Karl, and their son Stephen and his wife Erin – met us there. Audrey and Karl, who live in Oregon, are visiting Stephen and Erin, who live in Fredonia, New York. We had a great time together. After the museum, we drove over to the park where the two statues of Lucy are – the “Scary Lucy” and the new statue that replaced it. Then we ate lunch at the Cuban Café down the street from the museum. We’d never had Cuban food before and it was excellent. The restaurant is owned and run by a Cuban family. Our last stop was the Jamestown Cemetery to see Lucy’s grave. Then the Pisters headed back to Fredonia and we headed home.

The Lucy-Desi museum.

Replica of the TV set.

Vitameatavegamin!

At the new Lucy statue.

The "Scary Lucy" statue.

At the Cuban Cafe

Lucy's grave.

Our daughter Sarah was on television last week. She appeared on a Detroit news show, Live In the D, with her boss, Chef Orlando Santos. You can watch the clip here –  http://www.clickondetroit.com/live-in-the-d/live-in-the-d-desserts-that-dazzle-from-mgm-grand. We were so impressed and amused to see her.

Chef Sarah and Chef Orland on TV.

It’s overcast and gloomy today. The clouds are hanging low, so low the tops of the hills are shrouded in clouds. Warm air arrived yesterday and rain with it. I don’t mind the warm air, but a little sunshine would be nice. Tomorrow is the last day of October, All Hallows Eve. October passed by quickly. November will go even faster. Time seems to accelerate as the end of the year approaches. It always happens that way.