The Wilsons

This morning we headed out for apple picking: part deux (2).  We’d made a plan with Adam and Danelle to meet at our property around 1030am to pick apples and had set up a 4pm appointment at the Cider Mill in Busti to have our apples turned into cider.

We spent several solid hours picking apples.  Of course, Wil and McKinley picked about 4 apples each, then spent the rest of the time in the cab or bed of the truck, playing with Zechariah.  I found a caterpillar early in the morning, and I kid you not, Wil kept that caterpillar all day. Talk about a cheap toy! (not that life is cheap).

Needless to say, it was the adults who were doing the majority of the work.  Adam drove his truck back into our 30 acres, and we’d back the truck right up to a tree, set one ladder up in the bed of the truck and go to picking.

Danelle and Melodia spent a good chunk of the day together working separate trees from Adam and I.  They were plugging along on one a couple hundred feet away from (and out-of-site) of the truck when Danelle fell off the ladder.

Luckily, a few scratches, a headache, and some pride were the only damages.  Apple picking is a dangerous business folks; don’t try this at home.

We filled about 8 bins with apples, then had lunch on the property in Adam and Danelle’s RV Camper.  They brought it out to leave at the property for a bit.  It was a relaxing lunch.  We then snapped a photo of our two families together, and headed off to the Busti Cider Mill.

The Mill’s a good hour from our 30 acres, so Wil, McKinley, and Izzabelle all slept on the way.  Melodia and I wondered how much cider we’d get.  10 gallons?  13 if we were lucky?

Well, at this point, let me throw out some facts since most of you are probably wondering how much cider we got.  1 bushel of apples usually results in about 3 gallons of cider.  As we were loading the apples onto the washer/conveyor belt, we asked the operator about how many bushels he thought we had. We’d filled big plastic bins, not true bushel baskets, and from the looks of the comparison, our bins appeared to be about 1.25 to 1.5 bushels.

After the last apple headed up the conveyor belt, he estimated we had 14 bushels of apples. Now, at this point, we still didn’t know that whole thing about 1 bushel equalling 3 gallons and by extension 14 bushels would equal 42 gallons.

We headed up the stairs to watch the mill operator and see the skinny on cider making.  After being rinsed, chopped and mashed, the apples (now mush) fall(s) down a chute.  The operator places the mush onto a large cheesecloth-like material which is sitting on a pallet.  He then wraps the mush and lifts the pallet aside, and repeats the process, stacking several layers of apple mush on each other.

Then comes the press.  Large metal weights are freed up which lower a block onto the stacked pallets of mush, and the cider begins to ooze out  of them.  That cider flows through a set of tubing into an ultraviolet light setup designed to kill any organizisms which might have been in the apple flesh or liquid.

The liquid is further strained as it drains out and into a holding tank.  Down below this room is a series of pvc tubing connected to the holding tank.

The cider mill supplies the gallon jugs and lids for $1.60 per gallon of cider made. Individuals can also supply their own jugs and pay only $0.80 for each gallon made.  Adam and Danelle had managed to secure a dozen or so jugs, so we figured that would save greatly on our costs.

In the room below the holding tank, then (on the ground floor), we started filling the jugs at these pvc cider spickets.  Gallon after gallon flowed until I figured we were close to empty.  I mean, at this point, we had 14 gallons. More than we’d expected.

That’s when we asked the mill operator what the tank looked like.  “Oh, you’ve a ways to go,” he said.   So we kept filling… and filling… and filling… until… 51 gallons later, the last drop of cider flowed out.

51 gallons of cider!  Whew!  Now, interestingly, this was just from the apples we picked over 3 hours time.  And by our estimates, we had only taken about 1/5th of the apples on our 30-acre property!  So we’ve probably got up to another 200 gallons we could make, if we wanted.

As part of our sharing with the Padd’s, we split the $68 cost for the 51 gallons of cider. Yep, only $68 bucks for all that cider.  (The going rate, by the way is between $4.50 and $6.50 to buy a gallon of cider either at the mill or at a local grocery store!).

We gave Adam and Danelle half the cider to share with their friends and family.  It was quite exciting to stand there at the truck, all loaded up to head home, and see the fruits (or cider, 26 gallons) of our labor. What a wonderful outing and fun experience with our friends.

From there, we decided to drive straight to our church (the Busti Mill is about 1.5 hours from our apartment in Buffalo).  The church has a lecture series going on right now with a guest speaker, four nights of good stuff.  It started at 7pm and the GPS showed a 710pm arrival.  This was the only night that we weren’t planning on going, though we’d wanted to, because we figured not to be home in time. But, since Trixie (our affectionate name for our GPS, because you HAVE to name your GPS) said we could make it by 710pm, we decided to go for it.

The church is having a Harvest Festival at the end of October and is looking for all kinds of donations.  After the lecture series, we brought in our donation, several gallons of fresh cider.  I figured we’d gotten 51 gallons, why not truly tithe (10%) of our first fruits, so we gave the church 6 gallons. And of course, a gallon for the pastor and his wife.  It’s so awesome to be able to share this, and to think, that this came from our property.

Cider only lasts a week or two in the fridge, and then it gets “fizzy” (that’s the technical term for the process of fermentation that causes the cider to start to move the direction of alcohol). So, in order to get it to last longer, common practice is to freeze it.

We’re not sure what we’re giving away just yet.  We made our list, but we also wanted to make sure that we’d have cider through Christmas (we figured 10 gallons for us… 1 gallon/per week, yes Christmas is only 10 weeks away) would just about do it.  Fresh cider at Christmas, warmed on the oven, filling the house with that cider smell… mmm… bring it on.

So we chucked two gallons in the fridge for immediate drinking and put the other 16 in our upright freezer.  But if we’re saving 10, that doesn’t leave many more to give away.  (We’ve already given our apartment maintenance guy a gallon).  This and some of our conversations at the mill and in the car on the way home has got me thinking about going out there again later this week, and picking some more apples

This year has been a bumper year. Apples run in two-year cycles, so next year won’t be so cider-heavy.  I figure, it wouldn’t be too hard to pick another 51 gallons worth of cider.

Isn’t that just crazy?  I’m sure we’d find enough people to share it with.

Today was our first-ever experience making apple cider, and it was wonderful.

These are the kinds of homesteading experiences we love sharing with our kids.

p.s. for all the pictures, check out our flickr