Our Trip to the Cider Press

It's been another busy week here at the farm.  DD and I were able to get away for a wonderful weekend in the mountains.  The trees are beginning to change color and we've had a nice stretch of perfect weather; clear days and cool nights - perfect for sleeping.  We stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast, toured a cave and went horseback riding.  As much as we love the farm, it's also nice to get away every once in a while, too.
The day before we left for the weekend, we picked apples and took them to the cider press.  

When we purchased the farm we were excited to see it had many apple trees already established.  They were old and overgrown but so far we've gotten two good years from them.  The first year we moved here we had a large crop.  We are blessed to live close to an old-fashioned cider press where we can take our apples to be turned into amazing cider.  This is a report the children wrote for their teachers:

 

OUR TRIP TO THE CIDER PRESS

The drive to the cider press is a beautiful trip, especially in the fall.  The trees on the mountains are a blaze of autumn color. 

First, a couple of hours earlier, we had to pick the apples.  We got to drive around in the back of the pick-up truck to get to the different trees.  We were able to reach the apples by using a ladder, climbing the tree, and/or standing in the bed of the truck.  We picked four varieties of apples.

The cider press looks, from the outside, almost like an abandoned warehouse.  The current building has been in use for around fifty years.  You dump your apples into a big hopper.  They are carried away by a conveyor belt to be washed.

 

Then they make their way to the chopper.  The chopped apple mush is held in a tank above the press.  Men spread the apple mush onto a tray covered by a sheet.

 

 

The trays holding the apple mush are layered.  They slide on a cart over to the lift where they are finally pressed.   

 

 

The juice is captured in another tank and transported by tubes to the table where the jugs are filled.

 

 

 

What is left after the juice is pressed out of the apples is called pulp.  The pulp is carried out of the building by an elevator into a big truck.  The pulp is fed to happy cows and pigs.

 

 

 

We got 37 gallons of apple cider last week.  We're hoping to go back for a smaller batch but we're in the midst of another big project right now, seeding the pasture and spreading mulch hay, so we may not be able to find the time. 

 

Hope you're able to find some good apple cider where you are.  Nothing says "autumn" like the taste of apples!   

Bad Bird

Lucky, the Blue Jay, continues to thrive and grow.  We think it's a female. Apparently the only way to tell males and females apart on these birds is if there's a patch of feathers missing on the breast. This is an incubation patch that only the females have but it's very difficult to see unless the bird is wet or you hold her upside down and look closely.  Lucky does not like being held upside down but if you look at the photo below you can see a hint of this incubation patch. 

 

 

This picture, by the way, was taken while she was wet because she had just jumped into my mug of coffee!

 

 

The major drawback to living with a bird is the mess. Oh, the mess!

 

 

We keep Lucky's feeding area and the windowsills covered with towels but as she's gotten older she's less and less content to spend her day sitting in the window. She's constantly on the move.  

 

She stays busy all day long; hopping around the floor, flying all over the house and hunting for food or treasures.  Blue Jays, like other birds, eat small amounts of food but feed constantly.  These birds also like to stash food for later.  While we were researching Blue Jays, we found out they're the number two planter of oak trees.  They eat acorns but also hide them like squirrels.  Lacking acorns, Lucky hides her food all over our house.  In this photo she's shoving a half-dried worm into my computer bag.

 

 

When I opened the bag to retrieve the worm, I found a dried pea she'd hidden earlier.  She likes to shove peas and dried bugs between our toes.  That's an interesting feeling, believe me!

 

Once, after we'd eaten some watermelon, she flew up to the counter and began to peck at the rind.  Suddenly she jumped into the watermelon and began flapping around and rubbing her head in the juice.  We were laughing and wondering what on earth she was doing when it suddenly dawned on us that she was trying to take a bath.  Now we line the sink with a towel  and run water for her.

 

 

Here she's wet from a bath.

 

 

While she dries she likes to sit in the sun and fluff her feathers.  She's starting to turn more and more blue instead of gray.

 

 

She has this strange fascination with the napkins.  We've had to put them inside a cabinet because she just won't leave them alone.  She pulls them out of the napkin holder . . .

 

 

And flings them onto the floor. 

 

If she gets hold of one, she'll take off flying with a napkin trailing behind her.  We have to chase her down and grab it out of her beak before she rips it apart and eats it.  She seems to know, though, our intent when we're trying to take a treasure from her.  She's fast!  She'll dive in and grab a bit of food and then take off in a flash.  The other morning she stole the last bit of DS's bagel, complete with cream cheese on top, and tried to fly off with it.  The weight kept her from getting too far but we let her have it.  Who wants to eat a bagel after the bird has scrubbed it on the floor?

 

 

She's not shy about eating directly from our plates.  She especially likes cooked egg but she likes them best warm right from the microwave.  When we pull the bowl out we have to keep it covered otherwise she'll swoop in and steal a bite.  My mom is visiting this week.  The other morning I came downstairs and opened the door to the pantry - there was my mom, eating her breakfast in the pantry to keep the Blue Jay out of her oatmeal!

 

It's been a great adventure having Lucky with us but we're hoping she'll soon live a more normal Blue Jay life outside.  We've explained to her there won't be anyone around to microwave an egg for her so she'd better get used to a diet of bugs and worms, but so far she's not keen on the idea.  She's spent three nights outside like a real bird and she'll sometimes spend a large part of her day outside but when she's ready for a snack or she wants to settle in for the night, she flies back to the dining room windowsill and waits until we let her back in.

 

 

This morning as DH was walking out the door for work he asked us to check him over for bird poo because Lucky had just landed on his shoulder.  My mom's still laughing about that.  She says we're the only family she knows who has to check each other for Blue Jay presents before leaving the house.  It's always an adventure here!

 



DD's Photographs

 

Boat dock

 

Dear Daughter has inherited her dad's love for photography.  It's been fun to watch her practice and improve.  The farm offers many opportunities for great pictures.  These  are all photos she's taken . . .  

Fynn on the front porch

Killdeer nest

Pretty sunset

Corner of the barnyard

Rio in the mist

Jonboat on the pond

(This photograph is not her best technically but it's one of my favorites.)

 

Visitor at the clothesline

Fly on an apple 

 

Jack

 

Happy Fall Ya'll!

Working the Bees

It was beautiful weather last week so one afternoon DD and I headed out to the beeyard.  "The Girls" don't like to be bothered when it's chilly or windy or rainy or anything other than a warm, sunny day.

I'm more of a "hands off" type of beekeeper.  Mostly because I believe it's best for the bees, but also because I just can't find the time to be messing with them frequently. 

Earlier this summer we'd taken two and a half gallons of honey from a hive - it's great stuff! - and now it was time to check their honey production again. 

We have three hives.  The two larger we bought as packages last year and the smaller one we captured as a swarm this spring.  (Yes, that was another adventure.  We lived.)

Today we wanted to check in on all three hives to see if there was any more honey to take and put another super on the smallest hive.  First we gathered our supplies:

The empty super (the wooden box to the left of the photos), veils, gloves, bee brush, smoker fuel and the hive tool.  We use the green cooler to store frames of honey.  The airtight cooler keeps bugs and air from the honey until it can be harvested. 

We had already stripped the honey from the frames and now I wanted to put those empty frames on the smaller hive so they could clean up the foundation, eat the leftover honey and use the additional frames to store more food for the winter.  

 

I loaded the frames into the super while DD lite the smoker and turned to pet our dog, Jack.

 

 

Veil, long sleeve shirt, tall boots, pants and a tucked-in shirt are essential if you don't have a full bee jacket or suit.  (DD had pushed up her sleeves cause it was hot but was careful to put them down before getting into the hives.)  If/when the bees fall off the frames onto the ground, their first instinct is to start climbing anything they can find.  Usually that means up the beekeeper's boots and legs.  Last summer DD made the mistake of wearing her shirt un-tucked and was stung on the belly.

 

The beehives are actually quite close to the barnyard but most of our visitors don't even realize they are there unless we point them out.  The hives are oriented to the South and are shielded from the hot, late afternoon sun by a tree in the summer.  A cement block wall protects them from cold North winds during the winter.

 

 

It's proved to be an ideal location. 

 

 

A concern for beekeepers is providing enough water for their bees.  Water is an essential ingredient in honey and the bees need a constant, quiet source to collect what they need.  Initially I thought our bees would frequent the pond but we've found they prefer the cement stock tank at the bottom of the pasture.  

 

 

Most summer days there will be many workers along the water's edge.

 

 

All three hives looked good.  We'll check them more thoroughly before winter but this day we only quickly opened each hive, took a look at their honey production and added the additional super to the shortest hive.  The only area of concern I noticed was a frenzy of activity in front of the small hive after we'd placed the honey super on the hive.

 

 

The bees may be difficult to see in the above photo but the noise and activity level in front of this hive made me wonder if they weren't getting robbed of their new honey.  I wasn't sure - I don't know if I've ever seen a robber situation - but I went ahead and put an entrance reducer on the doorway of the hive.  The entrance reducer just cuts down on access to the hive so the guard bees have a fighting chance of defending their home and honey.  We don't want this small hive to be left with no winter stores, we're looking forward to even more honey next summer!

Loading the Pig

Do you ever feel as though life is a giant Whack-A-Mole game?  That's what this past week as been for us.  I meant all week to write about loading the pig.  Getting him loaded last Sunday was, of course, a huge production. 

 

He'd been eating, content in his Pig Pallet Palace, all summer long and was HUGE.  We knew it was time to take him to "freezer camp."

 

DH backed the trailer as close as he could to the gate of the pen.

 

 

Then he set about throwing together a ramp and creating a chute.  The ramp he made by setting up large pieces of firewood behind the trailer and leaning a wire mesh trailer gate on top of them.  The ramp had to be able to carry a lot of weight.  He got some extra pallets from the barn and other random pieces of wood and held them in place with t-posts and stakes driven into the ground in order to form a narrow chute.

 

 

The children ran around collecting some of Mr. Pig's favorite foods to use as a lure.

 

 

They collected a bucket each of acorns and apples.  We also got a gallon of milk out of the fridge and set his feed pan at toward the back of the trailer. We tried to coax him up the ramp . . .

 

 

 

But he would have none of it.  It was frustrating.  He was highly interested in the food and the milk but once we drew it away the tiniest bit, he would immediately turn back, away from the trailer, too lazy to follow the food as it moved out of reach.

 

Just like the day we got the pigs, Dear Neighbor, once again, came to the rescue.  He got a large strap from his shop and looped one side around the hog's belly, right behind his front legs, and tied the other to the back of his lawn tractor.  It took a couple of tries because the  strap kept slipping off, but he was able to drag the pig up the makeshift ramp and into the trailer.

 

I wasn't able to get a photos of that process because I was too busy holding up one of the pieces of the chute.  That pig was determined to get out whether he had to go over or through me!  I was very thankful for a heavy strap and the lawn tractor that kept him moving in the right direction.  We're looking forward to some tasty bacon!   

 



A Surprise in the Basement

Um, this was in our basement.

In case it's hard to see from the photo, I'll tell you; it's the empty skin of a Black Rat Snake. 

Normally I'm pretty okay with snakes but, I have to admit, it's a little disconcerting to see this big a skin IN OUR BASEMENT.  Did I mention it was in our basement??

 

DH held it up to show its length.  He's 5.10

 

 

It's taller than DD!

 

I'm sure the snake just came into the basement, discarded its skin and promptly slithered back outside.  Yeah, that's it.  Excuse me while I run, screaming, for the hills. 

 

Fixing Fencing

I was reminded yesterday morning why I like our electric, mesh fencing so much.  When we first moved to the farm and needed fencing for our naughty goats, we went to our local farm supply chain store and bought some electric tape and fiberglass posts to hold it up.  We stepped in the posts, ran the electric tape, hooked the whole thing to the fence charger and walked away with the satisfaction of a job well done. 

Until we let the goats into their newly fenced pasture.  They promptly escaped.  They laid down on the ground and belly-crawled under the fence.  They reared up and leaped through the top two strands of tape.  They walked through it as though it wasn't even there; kicking the strands of tape from their legs as they went.  Worse, when they got out, they invariably headed straight for the neighbor's nice, juicy patch of sweet corn.  

Do you have any idea the damage a goat can do to a stalk of corn?  To say nothing of seven goats in one small garden!  Thankfully the neighbor laughed it off but after the third (or twelfth!) time of chasing the goats out of the corn, I was ready to sell (or eat) the entire herd.

We realized our first mistake was that our fence charger was just too weak.  We took at face value the labeling which claimed the fencer would charge something like a couple of miles of fence.  It didn't.  We went back to the store and bought a heavy-duty fencer.  We put a 10 mile fencer on about 40 yards of fencing.  It really packed a punch.

The second thing we did was discover Premier One Supplies, http://www.premier1supplies.com/, and their line of electric, mesh fencing.  No, we don't work for them or anything but when I find a product that works, I'm happy to pass along the information.  We placed an order Monday and by Wednesday the fencing had arrived.

Between the heavy-duty charger and the electric mesh fencing, the goats learned to stay away from the fence.  Now they even respect the four strands of wire we later used to make our permanent, perimeter enclosures.

This morning I was working at the computer and the children had just begun their school work when we got a knock at the door.  It was DN (Dear Neighbor) telling us the pony was out.  We secured the pony then went to walk the fence line.  We soon saw the problem:

 

 

The passage between the main pasture and the top pasture had been created by using electric mesh fencing on the right side and the old post and tape on the left.  The post and tape was pulled down.  (The electric mesh on the right here is the pig fencing we never actually used for the pigs.)

 

 We had another section of mesh fencing but it was already in use for making a nice, big corral for the new pony, Rio, who is still in quarantine.  The only thing to do was to take his corral down to a smaller size and use that fencing along the passage way.

 

Pulling up the section of fence proved to be a little difficult since it had been in place for a while.  The weeds had grown up around the bottom strands.  We got it pulled up and moved what was left to enclose Rio's new, smaller pen. 

 

The nice thing about the mesh is it's soooo much easier to move, if need be, than the posts and tape fence.  As long as it's handled carefully, it rarely tangles plus it's light enough that one person can carry a section 164' long.  This is DD (Dear Daughter) carrying the mesh fence down to the breach.

 

 

The ground was so hard and dry that we had to use rubber mallets to drive in the posts.  We quickly strung the fencing along the corridor and over the stream, racing the goats and the pony who had come down to investigate.  Clover, our Saanen kid from last year, escaped but was quickly brought back when none of her partners in crime were able to make it out before we closed the gap.

 

We put up the new fence in front of the old.  The post and tape was left behind to be cleaned up another day.  We had to go back up to the house to get back to work!

 

 

The goats enjoyed cleaning up the weeds that had grown up under the old fence-line around Rio's area.  I gave him a flake of hay as a consolation prize for reducing his corral by half.  He'll be out of quarantine soon anyway.