Making Cidah
Cider (or cidah here in Maine) is one of Mr Chiot’s favorite fall treats. In Ohio, we had a local press we purchased gallons and gallons of cider from each year. We have yet to find cider as good as there’s here in Maine, so we usually get 8-10 gallons for our freezer when we’re back in Ohio for Thanksgiving. Lucky for our, our neighbor was given a cider press and we had an abundance of apples.
We have lots of different varieties of apples here, probably around 15, of which 8 are ready to be used right now. We have no idea what varieties they are, some over 120 years old. We’re hoping to figure out what they are here one of these days. We picked two of each variety and I made juice, which we tasted to see what flavor profiles they each had. It was amazing to taste the difference between them all, some where sweet, some were intense, others were watery, and still other were astringent.
After tasting the various juices, we started picking apples into big totes. Each tote holds around 2 bushels of apples, we picked three totes and a bushel. We picked for an hour or two and then loaded them up in the car to head down to our neighbor’s.
He was ready to roll, the cider press was fixed up nicely and on the front porch. After a little tweaking we were in business putting the apples through the crusher and making our first batch.
After a few hours we had all of our containers filled and tons of apple mash. Some went to his chickens, some went to our chickens, some went to a local farmer for their pigs.
Overall it was a really fun day, ending up with a lot of cider wasn’t so bad. The cider ended up being delicious, next year we might tweak our recipe a bit, but it’s still better than any of the cidah I’ve purchased from any of the local orchards. We were pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy the process was.
Have you ever been a part of a cider pressing day? Do you like apple cider?
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Quote of the Day: Autumn
“At this season, change was in the air itself, the scents of ripeness and death borne on the breeze, and the breath of winter in its chill. Still, they rhythms of the turning each brought change that was expected, ordained; body and mind met it with knowledge and–on the whole–with peace.”
Diana Gabaldon in The Fiery Cross (Outlander)
I hope you are enjoying the season, whether you live in a place with fall or not. I really enjoy the beauty that comes in this season before winter. The days are colder, the leaves are falling, the garden plants have pretty much stopped growing. It’s time for rest, for gardens and gardeners alike.
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Friday Favorite: The Low Sun
This time of year the sun is lower in the sky and it comes in the windows at different angles. Actually, it comes in the windows, bathing the room in a wonderfully warm, golden glow.
In the morning it shines on my favorite chair in the living room, this is where I sit and read sometimes before starting my day. If I must get to work early, I sit here with my laptop. In the afternoon, the sun shines in through my office window. While I love this light, I sometimes have to close the blinds for a half hour because of the glare off of my desk. Thankfully that is short-lived and soon enough the blinds are back up and I’m working in my light, bright office.
The cats seem to like the sun spots as well this time of year. They are like magnets, often you’ll find one or two cats in each sun spot. They move around throughout the day, following sun, soaking up as much warmth as they can.
I truly appreciate living in an area with seasonal changes, both in weather and in the sun. Growing up on the equator the days were the same, always. The sun came up at the same time every day and went to bed at the same time. The angle was the same and you didn’t get the beauty of long shadows during part of the year.
Do you live in an area where the sun changes throughout the seasons?
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Making Way
I’m making way in the garden for more things next year. That means thousands of strawberry plants are coming out. There are still plenty of strawberries out there, just not the ridiculous amounts that we had this summer. I left at least half of the plants and I’m debating cutting that in half again. Strawberries do best when the exhausted plants are pulled every couple years and the young plants are allowed to get established. I also like to move them to a new spot for crop rotation purposes. The nice this about berries is that they migrate on their own.
I tried to find people locally who were interested in plants, but no one seemed to want them. Oh well, I guess they’ll compost down into something lovely to feed the garden. Yesterday I was able to finish pulling the rest of the plants and get a layer of compost spread over the row. Next spring it will be ready for whatever I decide to plant, maybe something edible, maybe just a cover crop.
What chores are you finally getting done in the garden?
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Grrrrr
When you have birds and livestock you learn quickly that predators must be controlled. We do what we can to be predator friendly, I recognize that they are valuable in the grand scheme of things and don’t have the time to be constantly watching out for them. They can become a problem when they lose fear of humans and become pests, which they sometimes do. We’ve done what we can around here to be predator friendly, we have Tara (our Anatolian Shepherd) to scare them off, we have electric fences to keep the birds contained, we have cleared areas to help keep them away from the buildings and birds. For the most part I see foxes here and there throughout the day. They don’t bother the birds unless they get out of their electric fences. I see lots of coyote tracks in the winter, but they stay away from the house & the cleared areas.
Monday, I was working in the garden and looked up to see a coyote watching me work. Tara was barking and it was unfazed. I got up and walked towards it and took this photo with my phone (my good camera was inside). It just sat down and watched me. I yelled at it and it didn’t budge. Most predators I don’t mind as they’re smaller and don’t bother the cats, coyotes can and will grab pets if they can. I know of several people who have lots pets to them. I had Dexter and the Littles out working with me in the garden right before I spotted this predator. And so begins the task of trying to figure out how to keep these guys farther away from the fields and the house. When they lose their wariness of humans and guard dogs they can become a big problem, I’m going to be doing my best to help them remember why they should stay away from humans. It looks like I might be carrying a gun while I work in the garden, just in case I need it. I’ll be contacting places about the price of a perimeter fence and maybe start looking into other methods of deterring the coyotes from getting so close. Perhaps a big fence and another Anatolian is in order, but of course that’s a pricey venture.
What predators do you deal with in your garden?
