Schmeckt gut!
This is the time of year I love. Yesterday we picked the pears that were still a little green and a bushel and a half of ripe apples. After milking and before we had our breakfast we started pressing the fruit. We caught the cider as it ran out of the press and tasted as often as possible. Oh, how sweet! Then I made bacon and eggs and we had a wonderful farm breakfast washed down with the nectar of pears and apples.
Two years ago on Labor Day weekend I was canning apple sauce with some rather questionable and difficult apples (small) and happened to mention to Dan how a cider press would allow us to use up all the not so pretty apples and not waste them each year. For cider, they certainly don’t have to be perfect. Well, it wasn’t 10 minutes later he had found a cider press on Craigslist in Jefferson and off we went immediately to buy it. It was owned by a very meticulous person who kept it clean and well cared for. It was an old press but solid and dependable and huge. It was made in Lancaster Ohio, probably very, very old.
I have a very fond memory of my Uncle Alfred, a very eccentric Swiss man pressing apples in his milk house. The best thing I ever tasted was the cider from the tin cup we caught the cider with.
All of the fond memories related to farming always seem to go back to Uncle Alfred and his lovely Swiss farm in Arena, Wisconsin. The bells, the cider and the enjoyment of country li
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