Cider pressing and fiber messing (aka spinning and knitting)

When we bought our land 16 years ago, we knew we wanted an orchard. So after clearing land, we planted a bunch of little trees: apples, cherries, pears, plums...

You have to be patient with an orchard - it takes a while to establish. But we have been reaping the benefits of our fruit tree labor for a while now. 

Case in point: this year alone, we pressed cider on three different occasions, with hundreds of pounds of apples from our place.

Some of this is getting made into hard cider, lots of it is frozen for juice.

This is a job for a few people at a time: some are picking apples, some are washing them, and some feed the apples into the chute.

Then the cut-up pieces are being transferred into the pressing chamber, and the handle gets cranked.

And then comes the tasting, where people elbow each other out of the way to stick a cup under the steady stream of fragrant cider flowing forth, exclaiming how good it tastes.

Also, enough containers need to be rounded up for fitting all this golden liquid. After filling them all to the brim, there's cleanup.

As it often happens in our wilderness neighborhood on a weekend, people tend to stop by to visit, and of course, they get pulled into the cider making operation, much to the delight of all the little ones.

Come along and see what happens on a day like this!

Picking apples, and getting the ones on the ground before the bear and deer eat them

Washing station

Feeding the apples into the cutting chute

It helps to have willing and enthusiastic helpers

Putting the cut-up apples into the pressing container

Ha! Suckers! You thought you would stop by for a chill visit? Well, so much for leisure and relaxing!

The kids love to eat this foam. Better than ice cream.

Filling the containers

Besides harvesting all the fruit from our orchard, we also got all the food out of the garden. Pumpkins, squashes, gone-to-seed lettuce for the chickens, the rest of the cucumbers... 

Now all that's left is Swiss Chard, Kale, and Collards greens, plus lots of carrots and beets in the ground.

Last week, I put the garden to bed. I really like covering the soil to protect all the lovely soil organisms and micro critters in there, so I either sow green manure or spread straw.  (Not hay, since it has weeds.)

Now that the weather has shifted to almost-frost, rain and storms, the time for hibernation has begun.

Hibernating for me means plenty of knitting and spinning.

I've been on a sock-knitting kick, since it's moderately mindless and relaxing, and oh-so-necessary in a house full of active people who need socks. All. The. Time.

Last week I went to the Northwest Fiber Fusion event and bought a gorgeous batt of wool that made my heart rate speed up when I saw it. I'm spinning it into yarn for a hat and fingerless mittens. I think they will be gorgeous.

Now it's your turn. Leave me a comment in the comment section below and tell me what hibernating looks like for you.