On Saturday my sister and I were helping out at an Apple Pressing and Cider Tasting day held in the car park of the Yarcombe village hall - a small village in Somerset in the Blackdown Hills. I took along all my fallen apples - and a few more - to turn into juice.
First the apples are fed through a crusher which turns them into
a mush
which is then tipped into this wooden slatted apple press,
the lid is fitted in,
you turn the handle slowly,
and all the juice pours out - wonderful!
You bring along your own bottles and containers and
take away your own freshly pressed fragrant and delicious apple juice which will keep in the fridge for 4 days - then you have to freeze it if you don't want it to turn into cider.
Some people brought along barrel loads of their orchard apples....
which we helped to press ...going round and round with the handle like a donkey on a mill wheel.
This is the apple pulp, called must, which is left over after all the juice has been extracted. A farmer came and piled bags of it into the back of his Landrover to feed to his cattle and pigs.
You could also sample and buy last year's cider ..... it tasted too much like very rough scrumpy for me.
Today
I woke up to an amazing golden light the sky- flooding the garden with an ethereal stillness. I tried to take photos but they were mostly blurred...... the sky just looked grey....so disappointing.
Some people saw an ochre red sun....it was the effect of Hurricane Ophelia....dust in the atmosphere. We were warned there could be high winds in the South West....but it was quiet most of the day...
just a bit blustery in the afternoon .... all the doors in the house kept banging...it's still unseasonably warm so I have the windows open. And the leaves were whipped off the trees,
but the sky stayed clear summer blue
and I even got my towels dry on the line.
But I've felt unsettled, jittery all day...
till this evening ....
glad when the sun slipped away....into the gold of the sky .... like it appeared this morning.
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