Fall means all sorts of things-- pretty leaves, combines running, the weather getting cooler, hot drinks becoming popular, sweaters, and more. One main activity that comes for me on the farm is preparation... preparation for the coming winter.
I was raised in a family where the summers and falls were for gardening, canning, freezing, and many other forms of preserving food. As a newlywed, I have tried my best to keep up with that tradition, but have fallen far short of what my mother always did.
Lately, the juices have been running. By that I mean we put up apple cider and I made grape juice! The apple cider was done together with my in-laws, so that was shared work. On the property that Mitchell and I live on, we have 15-20 apple trees. The trees were absolutely loaded this year. I already made a bunch of apple sauce earlier on this summer, and a few weeks ago, it was cider pressing time. We loaded up apples from our trees onto the back of a pickup truck and a few cars. We had Mitchell shake a few of the trees to get more of the apples off. The apples were then trucked to a local cider press and once finished, the cider was placed in 35 gallon drums. We had taken 3 drums... and had too much! Thus we had to buy some jugs and bottle them out there. Once we got them home, we ran the cider through a filter that we use at the maple syrup camp so that the cider wouldn't have sediment that would settle. We then bottled it out into all the jugs we could round up. After all was said and done, we estimated around 110 gallons of cider was processed. And boy was it good!
The project I started after the cider (actually I made it just this last week) was grape juice. I have a small grape arbor that was planted by a man who had previously owned the house Mitchell and I are staying in. It is small and has been severely neglected for the past few... well... years at least, but it seemed to have a decent crop this year. I decided to try out the grape juice. What was there to lose? I borrowed a steamer from my mother-in-law, Marla. Let me tell ya-- that is one nifty invention! I picked and washed the grapes and all I had to do was fill the water part and put the grapes in! Wonderful! I was able to do all sorts of other tasks in the kitchen while it drained into a pitcher. I ended up with 2 1/2 gallons of concentrated juice, which I was pretty impressed with considering my skill level (little to none). I will definitely try to take care of my grapes this year and make juice again!
^ These were all my grapes-- Not many for the amount of juice I got!
< This was my steaming operation
The finished product! Yum! >
It has been an exhausting couple of weeks-- but once again, the Lord provides. He takes care of me. He is always faithful.
I was raised in a family where the summers and falls were for gardening, canning, freezing, and many other forms of preserving food. As a newlywed, I have tried my best to keep up with that tradition, but have fallen far short of what my mother always did.
Lately, the juices have been running. By that I mean we put up apple cider and I made grape juice! The apple cider was done together with my in-laws, so that was shared work. On the property that Mitchell and I live on, we have 15-20 apple trees. The trees were absolutely loaded this year. I already made a bunch of apple sauce earlier on this summer, and a few weeks ago, it was cider pressing time. We loaded up apples from our trees onto the back of a pickup truck and a few cars. We had Mitchell shake a few of the trees to get more of the apples off. The apples were then trucked to a local cider press and once finished, the cider was placed in 35 gallon drums. We had taken 3 drums... and had too much! Thus we had to buy some jugs and bottle them out there. Once we got them home, we ran the cider through a filter that we use at the maple syrup camp so that the cider wouldn't have sediment that would settle. We then bottled it out into all the jugs we could round up. After all was said and done, we estimated around 110 gallons of cider was processed. And boy was it good!
The project I started after the cider (actually I made it just this last week) was grape juice. I have a small grape arbor that was planted by a man who had previously owned the house Mitchell and I are staying in. It is small and has been severely neglected for the past few... well... years at least, but it seemed to have a decent crop this year. I decided to try out the grape juice. What was there to lose? I borrowed a steamer from my mother-in-law, Marla. Let me tell ya-- that is one nifty invention! I picked and washed the grapes and all I had to do was fill the water part and put the grapes in! Wonderful! I was able to do all sorts of other tasks in the kitchen while it drained into a pitcher. I ended up with 2 1/2 gallons of concentrated juice, which I was pretty impressed with considering my skill level (little to none). I will definitely try to take care of my grapes this year and make juice again!
^ These were all my grapes-- Not many for the amount of juice I got!< This was my steaming operation
The finished product! Yum! >
It has been an exhausting couple of weeks-- but once again, the Lord provides. He takes care of me. He is always faithful.
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