cidering.

we went to asheville north carolina last weekend to visit family and breathe deep the mountain air. it was great. it's starting to feel like fall and there was an nice chill to the air, the type that renews the soul. and the apples were in season.

we went apple and peaching picking on sunday and brought eighty pounds of produce back with us. yep, eighty pounds. sixty of apples and twenty of peaches. fourty pounds of those apples were seconds--the ones the orchard deems unworthy of full price status. the small and bruised ones. apple 'unlovables'. so we got forty pounds for tweleve dollars. and with those apples we made this:


three plus gallons of pure deliciousness (which is evidently a word--who knew!). we spent last week constructing our very own cider press. its pretty rudimentary and involves a lot of beefy looking lumber and a bottle jack. we did the apple crushing part with a garbage disposal (new garbage disposal). i wish i had pictures of the process, but after all was said and done we didn't get started until around ten o'clock friday night--not ideal picture taking time. let's just say it was sticky and amusing. and tasty.

hopefully we'll be making more before apple season is over.