Homegrown Happiness

 

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! But what about apples and plenty of them? Cider would be the obvious choice! For years we have tried our best to use the apples from the trees that were planted years before we moved here. But this year, the trees seem to be groaning under the weight of their rosy-cheeked crop. Today, of all days, the sun was shining and the temperatures soared like a beautiful summer day. But our day consisted of a true fall activity. We pulled out the old wine press that my father had given us years ago and our day of making apple cider began. Jim and I worked tirelessly to the background noise of his favourite movies playing on the garage TV behind us. Around noon my father-in-law stopped by to drop something off and pulled up a chair to the tables we had set up, grabbed a cutting board and joined in.

It was a lot of work! We quartered the fruit for the food processor, then put the mashed-up apples into the press and watched as the elixir of the gods began to flow. Hours later, my hands were more stained than that of a seasoned smoker's fingers and our backs were killing us. I had to race out to the store and buy more containers as we had under-estimated how much cider we would produce. It was well after dinner when we finally lugged the skins and pulp to the neighbour's chicken coop and the circle of "waste not/want not" continued as their hens literally attacked the piles of sweet apple remains with a frenzy! 

So now we have a fridge and freezer full of nature's goodness and I cannot wait to serve the cider next week for our family's Thanksgiving dinner. There are uncountable health benefits to drinking fresh cider and it's refreshing when served cold and dessert sweet so that you can enjoy it without feeling any guilt! The cider took hours to make, but we will be enjoying it for several months to come. Just another reason to love living in rural Niagara-on-the-Lake!

Lolita Schimann Hale