A Cider Adventure

Fw: Re: It really is Friday, now [15 July]

Tired again! That end of the week kind of tired again. But, this time it really is Friday. And another day I didn’t get to the Y.

This morning, I dropped off Mike’s blackberry container at Chris’ house. “What’s in here?” she asked before I could explain. I told her to tell him these were two bulbs for Resurrection Lilies and that he should plant them where he can see them. They look great in the middle of the yard.

Coady and his friend, Brandon (one of four on our block) wanted to know when we could make cider. They pushed and pushed so I canceled my trip to the Y and I told them we could do it when I got back from errands. The cider event had turned this into an equipment run because I needed new buckets.

Driving down Harrison, I saw an elderly man playing with a mower. As the garage, driveway and side yard were filled with mowers, I assumed he was a repairman. I turned around and went back to talk to him. Yes, he would take my old mower but, first, he would pet my dogs.

Trooper was so happy. He was going to get out and stay for a while. Ursa’s attitude was, “You’re a nice person but I belong to her.” He cut me a rose, a Rambling Rose, before I left. The fragrance is wonderful. [Don’t you know I missed my musical cue!]

On Division Street, Coady and Brandon started calling to me. Apparently, they thought I wouldn’t recognize them at Brandon’s house. “Get permission from your authority figures and come on down,” I told them.

The boys were here before I’d gotten the dogs to the yard. I asked the boys if they could load the mower into the car but they came back to report that they couldn’t manage it. The dogs were ready to go in so I joined the boys. We cut away the tape I’d used to stabilize the handle, folded the handle and, with the boys on one side and me on the other, we lifted the mower into the car.

I drove to Coady’s house to get permission for the boys to go with me to the mower shop. Brandon’s grandfather was there, too, so - - - well, two birds. On the trip, the boys played with their Spider Man and Ninja Turtle but, when we got there, Coady insisted on helping unload the mower.

The mower man wanted to do it for us but I told him that, at this age, it’s important for boys to do these things. When I got back into the car, I found Spider Man and the Ninja Turtle were very busy fellows.

At home, I washed out the yard cart, again, while the boys emptied, rinsed and refilled the litter pans I use as birdbaths. I gathered equipment while the boys played in the water. I pulled the yard cart to the side yard and began picking up apples. When I convinced the boys to join me, there were a lot of “Eoo!!” exclamations about touching the many squishy apples.

Like grass, the apples on the other side of the fence are always better so the boys wanted to climb the fence. Fence climbing is not an option at our house so they did, finally, go around to the neighbor’s driveway. I think we made a net gain of a dozen apples, as dropping or tossing apples into the cart was out of the question. Boys being boys, their method was an interval of pitch and catch, sometimes followed by the big windup and fast apple to the target. Sometimes, the apple hit the cart. Sometimes, it didn’t. We missed a lot of the apples on the driveway when Brandon saw a bee-like insect. The ear-piercing shriek rang through the neighborhood.

After a "pulling is better than pushing" tutorial, Coady brought the yard cart to the back yard. There we conducted a discussion of the possibility of death – “My mom will kill me – as Brandon displayed the remains of a particularly mushy apple on his shorts. He blamed Coady, who said he’d retaliated when Brandon had laughed at his falling down.

A short discussion later, we moved on to the apple tree in the back of the yard where I found myself alone, crouching under the low branches of the tree. The boys had stopped to pick grapes. The grapes were green and discouraging but it was a while before they got to the apple tree because there was much to explore and water to test. Because I was feeling the weather moving in, I urged the workers on to the task but they had trouble orienting to task. Apples are too round. “Okay, guys,” I, finally, said, “God didn’t put toys on fruit trees. Let’s remember this is food.”

I left them to fill the yard cart with water while I came to the house to gather equipment. When I returned, both boys were drenched. I pointed to the yard cart and Coady told me he had put water in there. I explained, again, that I wanted it filled. When I returned, the cart was nearly full. I waited until the cart began to overflow. “Now, we turn off the water and I’ll bring out the machine.” They were ecstatic when they learned that washing the apples meant sloshing apples around in the water.

With the boys hard at it, I came to the house for the juicer. Then, the doorbell rang. Brandon (across the street) has returned from his St. Louis visit so he and his friends, Brandon and Chuck, had come to see me. Brandon had little to say about his visit and, though I’m sure they had come with mowing in mind, no one mentioned it. Knowing I had more boys in the back yard, I had to hurry this group along.

I’ve begun to think of cider days as stormy. I wasted a lot of apples when the last rain had hit, so I knew I had to hurry my crew. They didn’t understand the urgency. “Listen to the trees,” I told them. “It’s starting to rain.” They looked at each other and, then, at the sky. While I pushed apples down the chute, I listened to the rain on the trees amplify. When I said we’d have to stop, the boys insisted they couldn’t hear the thunder over the machine. Now, is that a man’s brain or not? Girls can hear thunder, sirens, laughter, etc., over the sounds of machines. Boys hear only the machine.

I ground the last of the apples I’d chopped and began to clear the equipment. We had precious little cider but I, dutifully, set it to strain while we put the last of the gear into the garage, the closest structure. As we headed toward the house, the rain began to beat down on us. I sent the boys to the front, jugged our prized elixir, grabbed my car keys and a large towel and ran for the front door.

When I reached the porch, Coady was just coming back to tell me his dad had come to get them. I handed him the jug and went out to apologize to his dad. He laughed. He’d expected that, boys being boys and cider making being cider making, the boys would be wet, stained and sticky. And, really. What could make boys happier?

Epilogue
It’s Saturday evening. Today, I’ve spent several hours finishing the cider. Yesterday, I was thinking about getting a Jack LaLanne juicer because I wanted more juice and dry pulp. All that straining takes a lot of time. I’ve, since, decided Jack’s might only look better on TV. Plays one on TV? The Internet is a wonderful tool. There are other juicers more highly rated. Some use centrifugal force and some are augers. Whoever heard of a triturating juicer? Sounds just scary!


After which perdita writes: You should add this to your apple cider post. Though sleep, not rain ends the picking, it had the same sort of feel to me :)

After Apple Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.

- Robert Frost-